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THE LIFE OF 
SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. 



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TORONTO 




SIR WALTER SCOTT 



II i / 



LOCKHART^S 
LIFE OF SCOTT 



ABRIDGED AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION 
AND NOTES 

BY 

O. LEON REID 

PRINCIPAL OF THE GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL 
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1914 

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Copyright, 1914, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1914. 



FEB 25 1914 



©Cf.A369143 






TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

PREFACE ix 



INTRODUCTION xi 

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT .... 1 
NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 249 



Vll 



FEB 26 1914 



PREFACE 

John Gibson Lockh.^rt's Life of Sir Walter Scott has 
ranked since its publication in 1838 among the few great 
biographies of the Enghsh language. It first appeared 
in seven volumes, abridged by the author in 1848 to two 
volumes. The present edition is an abridgment of that 
of 1848. The text follows Lockhart's edition closely, the 
English spellings of Scott and Lockhart being allowed to 
stand so as to preserve so far as possible the flavor of the 
original. It is the hope of the editor that many young 
readers ma}^ be inspired by this introduction to a great 
and good man to read more of Lockhart's larger work and 
to rejoice in the poems and stories of the Mighty Minstrel 
so constantly referred to in these pages. 

With the exception of less than a score of itahcized link 
phrases or sentences, inserted to join the severed threads 
of Lockhart's narrative, the following abridgment is re- 
stricted to the original sentences of the author. Notes 
have been given only where the context does not furnish 
an enhghtening hint concerning the person or matter ^^ith 
which high school boys and girls of to-day may be sup- 
posed to be unfamiUar. 

Writing of his childhood enjojTuent of the knights and 
ladies and dragons and giants of Spenser, Scott says, 
''God only knows how dehghted I was to find myself in 
such society." How many readers throughout the world 
can echo that sentiment in connection with the goodly 



X PREFACE 

society created by Scott ! In Lockhart's pages we may 
take the long sea- trail back to Scotland and find ourselves 
a fellow guest with Irving at Abbotsford. We may linger 
there through those joyous years of success and, at last, 
in rapt and pitying admiration watch the mighty struggle 
of the true knight, Sir Walter Scott, a struggle against a 
debt more than six times as large as that over which our 
own Mark Twain triumphed. We shall be very proud of 
our friend, Walter Scott, and because he fought the good 
fight we shall be the stronger. 

0. L. REID. 

The Girls' High School, 

Louisville, Kentucky, 

May 15, 1913. 



INTRODUCTION 

Ix the closing pages of Lockliart's Life of Scott we 
read, ''Abbotsford, after his own immortal works, is the 
best monument of its founder." We now know that next 
to Scott's immortal works the Life written by his de- 
voted son-in-law, John Gibson Lockhart, has done most 
for the fame of Scotland's greatest story-teller. 

At a social affair in Edinburgh in 1818 Lockhart, then 
in his twenty-fourth year, was presented to his great 
countrjTiian, Walter Scott. As a briUiant young Tory 
writer whose satires had been appearing for some time in 
Blackwood's Magazine, Lockhart had attracted Scott's 
attention. An additional bond between them was the fact 
that the younger man was of the body of Edinburgh 
advocates, and, as Scott had done some years earher, was 
gradually drifting into the profession of hterature. 

Scott was ever alert to the attractions of keen young 
minds. Here was a handsome young scholar, tall and 
slight, proud and reserved, yet willing to meet all advances 
of the older man. As to his intellectual abihty, he had 
entered the L^niversity of Glasgow before his twelfth 
birthday. Because of his abihty in Greek he was recom- 
mended for a scholarship at Balhol College, Oxford, and 
was graduated from there as one of the honor men in the 
classics in his nineteenth year. During these years he had 
also mastered the reading of German, French, ItaUan, and 
Spanish. The three j^ears after his graduation were 



xii IN TROD UC TION 

occupied in preparation for the bar, to which he was ad- 
mitted as an advocate in 1816. He had further enriched 
his training by a season in Germany during which he had 
met the great poet Goethe. But much learning had not 
made him mad. He could accept another's point of view. 
While not enjoying sports himself, he seems to dehght in 
recounting stories to illustrate Sir Walter's pleasure in 
them. He could listen quite as well as talk. In all the 
seven volumes of the unabridged Life there are few 
foreign phrases, just enough to indicate the scholar's 
self-restraint rather than the pedant's indulgence. 

The acquaintance with Scott rapidly ripened into deep 
friendship. In an intimate circle Lockhart's reserve 
passed gently into pleasing gayety, and it is not difficult 
to understand how Sir Walter's daughter, Sophia, of the 
four Scott children the one most like her father, found in 
her father's young friend the man to whom she could give 
her deepest love. They were married in 1820. 

Five years later Lockhart was called to London to the 
editorship of the Quarterly Review at a yearly salary of 
£1000. Until a short time before his death he continued 
to maintain the high standards of editorship that had al- 
ways characterized the Quarterly. In the discharge of this 
office he refused to publish Carlyle's essay on "Chartism." 
Yet Carlyle always felt kindly toward him. In his review 
of the Life Carlyle seemed more willing to do justice 
to the biographer than to the subject of his work. The 
Encydopcedia Britannica refers to this review as "pee- 
vish," but many admirers of Scott find pleasure in reading 
the estimate of that other great Scotchman. His limi- 
tations on Scott's greatness do not lessen our regard for 
the man who has become a hero for many of us, as he had 
for Lockhart. 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

Lockhart was not a success as a novelist, but his Life 
of Burns established his right to be termed one of the 
greatest of biographers. His Scott is second only to 
BoswelFs Johnson. By some it is ranked first among 
English biographies. 

As we read this great life and admire its author's splen- 
did narrative style, we may note from time to time some 
slight references to himself, ^y piecing these together 
and b}^ considering how great his part was in Scott's 
affairs, we shall better understand Lockhart's true charac- 
ter. Nor shall we be surprised to learn that the large 
sums realized from the sale of his most important work, 
The Life of Scott, were applied to the discharge of his 
hero's debts. 

In 1854, broken in health, Lockhart went to live with 
his daughter, Mrs. Hope-Scott, at Abbotsford. His was 
the room next to that one in which Sir Walter had passed 
away so peacefull}^ while his beloved Tweed rippled its 
music that September day twenty-two j^ears before. The 
Tweed country was a bit bleak in November when Lock- 
hart died. They buried him in old Dryburgh at Scott's 
feet. 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

CHAPTER I 

MEMOIR OF HIS EARLY YEARS, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF 

Ashestiel, April 26th, 1808. 

The present age has discovered a desire, or rather a 
rage, for hterary anecdote and private history, that may 
be well permitted to alarm one who has engaged in a 
certain degree the attention of the public. That I have 5 
had more than my own share of popularity, my contem- 
poraries will be as ready to admit as I am to confess that 
its measure has exceeded not only my hopes, but my 
merits, and even wishes. I may be therefore permitted, 
without an extraordinary degree of vanity, to take the 10 
precaution of recording a few leading circumstances (they 
do not merit the name of events) of a very quiet and 
uniform Ufe — that, should my hterary reputation sm-vive 
my temporal existence, the public may know from good 
authority all that they are entitled to know of an indi- 15 
vidual who has contributed to their amusement. 

From the lives of some poets a most important moral 
lesson may doubtless be derived, and few sermons can be 
read with so much profit as the Memoirs of Burns,° of 
Chatterton,° or of Savage.° Were I conscious of any 20 
thing peculiar in my own moral character which could 
render such developement necessary or useful, I would as 

B 1 



2 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

readily consent to it as I would bequeath my body to 
dissection, if the operation could tend to point out the 
nature and the means of curing any peculiar malady. 
But as my habits of thinking and acting, as well as my 
5 rank in society, were fixed long before I had attained, or 
even pretended to, any poetical reputation, and as it 
produced, when acquired, no remarkable change upon 
either, it is hardly to be expected that much information 
can be derived from minutely investigating frailties, 

lo follies, or vices, not very different in number or degree 
from those of other men in my situation. As I have not 
been blessed with the talents of Burns or Chatterton, I 
iiave been happily exempted from the influence of their 
violent passions, exasperated by the struggle of feelings 

15 which rose up against the unjust decrees of fortune. Yet, 
although I cannot tell of difficulties vanquished, and 
distance of rank annihilated by the strength of genius, 
those who shall hereafter read this little Memoir may find 
in it some hints to be improved, for the regulation of their 

20 own minds, or the training those of others. 

Every Scottishman has a pedigree. It is a national 
prerogative, as unalienable as his pride and his poverty. 
My birth was neither distinguished nor sordid. Accord- 
ing to the prejudices of my country, it was esteemed 

25 gentle, as I was connected, though remotely, with ancient 
families both by my father's and mother's side. My 
father's grandfather was Walter Scott, well known in 
Teviotdale° by the surname of Beardie. He was the 
second son of Walter Scott, first Laird of Raeburn, who 

30 was third son of Sir Wilham Scott, and the grandson of 
Walter Scott, commonly called in tradition Auld Watt of 
Harden. I am therefore lineally descended from that 
ancient chieftain, whose name I have made to ring in 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 

many a ditty, and from his fair dame, the Flower of 
Yarrow° — no bad genealogy for a Border minstrel. 
Beardie, my great-grandfather aforesaid, derived his 
cognomen from a venerable beard, which he wore miblem- 
ished by razor or scissors, in token of his regret for the 5 
banished dynasty of Stuart. ° It would have been well 
that his zeal had stopped there. But he took arms, and 
intrigued in their cause, until he lost all he had in the 
world, and, as I have heard, run a narrow risk of being 
hanged, had it not been for the interference of Anne, 10 
Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. 

He left three sons. The second, Robert Scott, was my 
grandfather. He was originally bred to the sea; but, 
being shipwrecked near Dundee in his trial-voyage, he 
took such a sincere dislike to that element, that he could 15 
not be persuaded to a second attempt. This occasioned 
a quarrel between him and his father, who left him to 
shift for himself. Robert was one of those active spirits 
to whom this was no misfortune. He turned Whig upon 
the spot, and fairly abjured his father's politics, and his 20 
learned poverty. His chief and relative, Mr. Scott of 
Harden, gave him a lease of the farm of Sandy-Knowe, 
comprehending the rocks in the centre of which Smailholm 
or Sandy-Knowe Tower is situated. 

Robert Scott of Sandy-Knowe, married, in 1728, Bar- 25 
bara Hahburton, daughter of Thomas Hahburton of New- 
mains, an ancient and respectable family in Berwickshire. 
Among other patrimonial possessions, they enjoyed the 
part of Dryburgh, now the property of the Earl of Buchan, 
comprehending the ruins of the Abbey. My granduncle, 30 
Robert Hahburton, having no male heirs, this estate, as 
well as the representation of the family, would have de- 
volved upon my father, and indeed Old Newmains had 



4 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

settled it upon him ; but this was prevented by the mis» 
fortunes of my granduncle, a weak silly man, who engaged 
in trade, for which he had neither stock nor talents, and 
became bankrupt. The ancient patrimony was sold for a 
5 trifle (about £3000), and my father, who might have pur- 
chased it with ease, was dissuaded by my grandfather^ 
who at that time believed a more advantageous purchase 
might have been made of some lands which Raeburn 
thought of selling. And thus we have nothing left of 

lo Dryburgh, although my father's maternal inheritance, but 

the right of stretching our bones where mine may perhaps 

be laid ere any eye but my own glances over these pages. 

Walter Scott, my father, was born in 1729, and educated 

to the profession of a Writer to the Signet. In April 

15 1758, he married Anne Rutherford, eldest daughter of 
Dr. John Rutherford, professor of medicine in the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh. He was one of those pupils of 
Boerhaave,° to whom the school of medicine in our north- 
ern metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished for 

20 professional talent, for lively wit, and for literary acquire- 
ments. 

My father and mother had a very numerous famil}^ 
no fewer, I believe, than twelve children, of whom 
many were highly promising, though only five sur\dved 

25 very early youth. I was born, as I believe, on the 15th 
August 1771, in a house belonging to my father, at the 
head of the College Wynd. It was pulled down, with 
others, to make room for the northern front of the new 
College. I was an uncommonly healthy child, but had 

30 nearly died in consequence of my first nurse being ill of a 
consumption, a circumstance which she chose to conceal, 
though to do so was murder to both herself and me. She 
went privately to consult Dr. Black, the celebrated pro- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5 

fessor of chemistry, who put my father on his guard. 
The woman was dismissed, and I was consigned to a 
healthy peasant, who is still alive to boast of her laddie 
being what she calls a grand gentleman. I shewed every 
sign of health and strength until I was about eighteen s 
months old. One night, I have been often told, I shewed 
great reluctance to be caught and put to bed ; and after 
being chased about the room, was apprehended and con- 
signed to my dormitory with some difficulty. It was the 
last time I w^as to shew such personal agiUty. In the lo 
morning, I was discovered to be affected with the fever 
which often accompanies the cutting of large teeth. It 
held me three days. On the fourth, when they went to 
bathe me as usual, they discovered that I had lost the 
power of my right leg. My grandfather, an excellent 15 
anatomist as well as physician, the late worthy Alexander 
Wood, and many others of the most respectable of the 
faculty, were consulted. There appeared to be no dis- 
location or sprain ; bUsters and other topical remedies 
were applied in vain. When the efforts of regular phy- 20 
sicians had been exhausted, without the slightest success, 
my anxious parents, during the course of many years, 
eagerly grasped at every prospect of cure which was held 
out by the promise of empirics, or of ancient ladies or 
gentlemen who conceived themselves entitled to recom- 25 
^ mend various remedies, some of which were of a nature 
sufficiently singular. But the advice of vny grandfather. 
Dr. Rutherford, that I should be sent to reside in the 
country, to give the chance of natural exertion, excited 
by free air and liberty, was first resorted to ; and before 30 
I have the recollection of the slightest event, I was, agree- 
ably to this friendly counsel, an inmate in the fann-house 
of Sandy-Knowe. 



6 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

It is here at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence of my 
paternal grandfather, already mentioned, that I have the 
first consciousness of existence; and I recollect distinctly 
that my situation and appearance were a little whimsical. 
5 Among the odd remedies recurred to to aid my lameness, 
some one had recommended, that so often as a sheep was 
killed for the use of the family, I should be stripped, and 
swathed up in the skin, warm as it was flayed from the 
carcase of the animal. In this Tartar-like habiliment I 

lo well remember lying upon the floor of the little parlour in 
the farm-house, while my grandfather, a venerable old 
man with white hair, used every excitement to make 
me try to crawl. This must have happened about my 
third year, for my grandfather died shortly after that 

15 period. 

My grandmother continued for some years to take charge 
of the farm, assisted by my father's second brother, Mr. 
Thomas Scott, who resided at CraiUng, as factor or land- 
steward for Mr. Scott of Danesfield, then proprietor of 

20 that estate. This was during the heat of the American 
war, and I remember being as anxious on my uncle's weekly 
visits (for w^e heard news at no other time) to hear of the 
defeat of Washington, as if I had had some deep and per- 
sonal cause of antipathy to him. I know not how this 

25 was combined with a very strong prejudice in favour of the 
Stuart family, which I had originally imbibed from the 
songs and tales of the Jacobites.° This latter political 
propensity was deeply confirmed by the stories told in my 
hearing of the cruelties exercised in the executions at Car- 

3ohsle, and in the Higlilands, after the battle of CuUoden.*^ 
One or two of our own distant relations had fallen on that 
occasion, and I remember of detesting the name of Cum- 
berland with more than infant hatred. Mr. Curie, farmer 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 7 

at Yetbyre, husband of one of mj^ aunts, had been present 
at their execution ; and it was probably from him that I 
first heard these tragic tales which made so great an im- 
pression on me. The local information, which I conceive 
had some share in forming nry future taste and pursuits, s 
I derived from the old songs and tales which then formed 
the amusement of a retired country famil}^ My grand- 
mother, in whose youth the old Border depredations w^re 
matter of recent tradition, used to tell me many a tale of 
Watt of Harden, Wight WiUie of Aikwood, Jamie Telfer of lo 
the fair Dodhead, and other heroes — merry men all of the 
persuasion and calling of Robin Hood° and Little John.° 
A more recent hero, but not of less note, was the cele- 
brated Diel of Littledean, whom she well remembered, as 
he had married her mother's sister. Of this extraordinary 15 
person I learned manj^ a story, grave and gay, comic and 
warhke. Two or three old books which lay in the window- 
seat were explored for my amusement in the tedious win- 
ter-days. Automathes,° and Ramsay's° Tea-table Mis- 
cellany were m}^ favourites, although at a later period an 20 
odd volume of Josephus's° Wars of the Jews di\dded my 
partiality. 

My kind and affectionate aunt. Miss Janet Scott, whose 
memor}' will ever be dear to me, used to read these works 
to me with admirable patience, until I could repeat long 25 
passages by heart. The ballad of Hardyknute I was early 
master of, to the great annoyance of almost our only 
visitor, the worthy clergyman of the parish. Dr. Duncan, 
who had not patience to have a sober chat interrupted by 
my shouting forth this ditty. Methinks I now see his tall 30 
thin emaciated figure, his legs cased in clasped gambadoes, 
and his face of a length that would have rivalled the Knight 
of La Mancha's,° and hear him exclaiming, '^One may as 



8 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child 
is." With this little acidity, which was natural to him, he 
was a most excellent and benevolent man, a gentleman in 
every feeling, and altogether different from those of his 

5 order who cringe at the tables of the gentry, or domineer 
and riot at those of the 3- eomanry. 

I was in my fourth year when my father was advised 
that the Bath° waters might be of some advantage to my 
lameness. My affectionate aunt, although such a journey 

10 promised to a person of her retired habits any thing but 
pleasure or amusement, undertook as readily to accompany 
me to the wells of Bladud,° as if she had expected all the 
dehght that ever the prospect of a watering-place held out 
to its most impatient visitants. My health was by this 

15 time a good deal confirmed by the country air, and the 
influence of that imperceptible and unfatiguing exercise to 
wliich the good sense of my grandfather had subjected me ; 
for when the day was fine, I was usually carried out and 
laid down beside the old shepherd, among the crags or 

20 rocks round which he fed his sheep. The impatience of 
a child soon inclined me to struggle with my infirmity, 
and I began by degrees to stand, to walk, and to run. 
Although the hmb affected was much shrunk and con- 
tracted, my general health, which was of more importance, 

25 was much strengthened by being frequently in the open 
air ; and, in a word, I who in a city had probably been 
condemned to hopeless and helpless decrepitude, was now 
a healthy, high-spirited, and, mj^ lameness apart, a sturdy 
child — non sine diis animosus infans° 

30 We went to London by sea, and it may gratify the curi- 
osity of minute biographers to learn that our voyage was 
performed in the Duchess of Buccleuch, Captain Beatson, 
master. At London we made a short stay, and saw some 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 9 

of the common shows exhibited to strangers. When, 
twenty-five j^ears afterwards, I visited the Tower of Lon- 
don and Westminster Abbey, I was astonished to find how 
accurate my recollections of these celebrated places of 
^'isitation proved to be, and I have ever since trusted s 
more implicitlj^ to my juvenile reminiscences. At Bath, 
where I Uved about a year, I went through all the usual 
discipline of the pump-room and baths, but I beUeve 
without the least advantage to my lameness. During 
my residence at Bath, I acquired the rudiments of reading lo 
at a day-school, kept by an old dame near our lodgings, 
and I had never a more regular teacher, although I think 
I did not attend her a quarter of a year. An occasional 
lesson from m}' aunt supplied the rest. Afterwards, when 
grown a big boy, I had a few lessons from Mr. Stalker of is 
Edinburgh, and finally from the Rev. Mr. Cleeve. But 
I never acquii'ed a just pronunciation, nor could I read 
\\\ih much propriety. 

In other respects my residence at Bath is marked by 
very pleasing recollections. The venerable John Home,° 20 
author cf Douglas, was then at the watering-place, and 
paid much attention to my aunt and to me. His -wife, who 
has survived him, was then an invalid, and used to take the 
air in licr carriage on the Downs, ° when I was often invited 
to accorrpany her. But the most dehghtful recollections 25 
of 1 ath are dated after the arrival of my uncle, Captain 
Rcb< rt Scott, who introduced me to all the little amuse- 
mei - V' hich suited my age, and above all, to the theatre. 
The ; lay was As You Like It; and the witchery of the 
wh(i( cene is alive in my mind at this moment. I made, 30 
I btlie\ e, noise more than enough, and remember being so 
much .^andaUzed at the quarrel between Orlando and his 
brother in the first scene, that I screamed out, ''A'n't they 



10 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

brothers?" A few weeks' residence at home convinced 
me, who had till then been an only child in the house of 
my grandfather, that a quarrel between brothers was a 
very natural event. 
5 After being a year at Bath, I returned first to Edin- 
burgh, and afterwards for a season to Sandy-I^owe ; — 
and thus the time whiled away till about m}^ eighth year, 
when it was thought sea-bathing might be of service to 
my lameness. 

lo For this purpose, still under my aunt's protection, I 
remained some weeks at Prestonpans ; a circumstance not 
worth mentioning, excepting to record my juvenile inti- 
macy with an old mihtary veteran, Dalgetty by name, who 
had pitched his tent in that Uttle village, after all his 

15 campaigns, subsisting upon an ensign's half-pay, though 
called by courtesy a Captain. As this old gentleman, who 
had been in all the German wars, found very few to listen 
to his tales of military feats, he formed a sort of alliance 
with me, and I used invariably to attend him for the pleas- 

2oure of hearing those communications. Sometimes our 
conversation turned on the American war, which was then 
raging. It was about the time of Burgoyne's unfortunate 
expedition, to which my Captain and I augured different 
conclusions. Somebody had shewed me a map of North 

25 America, and, struck with the rugged appearance of the 
country, and the quantity of lakes, I expressed some 
doubts on the subject of the General's arriving safely at 
the end of his journey, which were very indignantly re- 
futed by the Captain. The news of the Saratoga disaster, 

30 while it gave me a little triumph, rather shook my inti- 
macy with the veteran. 

From Prestonpans I was transported back to my father's 
house in George's Square, which continued to be my most 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 11 

established place of residence, until my marriage in 1797. 
I felt the change from being a single indulged brat, to be- 
coming a member of a large family, very severely; for 
under the gentle government of my kind grandmother, 
who was meekness itself, and of my aunt, who, though of 5 
an higher temper, was exceedingly attached to me, I had 
acquired a degree of hcence which could not l^e permitted 
in a large family. I had sense enough, however, to bend 
my temper to my new circumstances; but such was the 
agony which I internally experienced, that I have guarded 10 
against nothing more in the education of my own family, 
than against their acquiring habits of self-willed caprice 
and domination. I found much consolation during this 
period of mortification, in the partiaUty of my mother. 
She joined to a hght and happj^ temper of mind a strong 15 
turn to study poetry and works of imagination. She was 
sincerely devout, but her rehgion was, as became her sex, 
of a cast less austere than my father's. Still, the dis- 
cipline of the Presbyterian Sabbath was severely strict, 
and I think injudiciously so. Although Bunyan's° Pil- 20 
grim, Gesner's° Death of Abel, Rowe's° Letters, and one or 
two other books, which, for that reason, I still have a 
favour for, were admitted to relieve the gloom of one dull 
sermon succeeding to another — there was far too much 
tedium annexed to the duties of the day ; and in the end 25 
it did none of us any good. 

My week-daj^ tasks were more agreeable. My lameness 
and my solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, 
and my hours of leisure wxre usually spent in reading aloud 
to my mother Pope's° translation of Homer,° w^hich, ex- 30 
cepting a few traditionary ballads, and the songs in Allan 
Ramsay's Evergreen, was the first poetry which I perused. 
My mother had good natural taste and great feehng : she 



12 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

used to make me pause upon those passages which ex- 
pressed generous and worthy sentiments, and if she could 
not divert me from those which were descriptive of battle 
and tumult, she contrived at least to divide my atten- 

5 tion between them. My own enthusiasm, however, was 
chiefly awakened by the wonderful and the terrible — the 
common taste of children, but in which I have remained a 
child even unto this day. I got by heart, not as a task, 
but almost without intending it, the passages with which 

10 1 was most pleased, and used to recite them aloud, both 
when alone and to others — more willingly, however, in my 
hours of solitude, for I had observed some auditors smile, 
and I dreaded ridicule at that time of life more than I 
have ever done since. 

15 In [1778] I was sent to the second class of the Gram- 
mar School, or High School of Edinburgh, then taught 
by Mr. Luke Eraser, a good Latin scholar and a very 
worthy man. Though I had received, with my brothers, 
in private, lessons of Latin from Mr. James French, now a 

20 minister of the Kirk of Scotland, I was nevertheless rather 
behind the class in which I was placed both in years and 
in progress. This was a real disadvantage, and one to 
which a boy of lively temper and talents ought to be as 
little exposed as one who might be less expected to make 

25 up his lee-way, as it is called. The situation has the un- 
fortunate effect of reconciling a boy of the former character 
(which in a posthumous work I maj^ claim for my own) 
to holding a subordinate station among his class-fellows — 
to which he would otherwise affix disgrace. There is also, 

30 from the constitution of the High School, a certain danger 
not sufficiently attended to. The boys take precedence in 
their places, as they are called, according to their merit, 
and it requires a long while, in general, before even a 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 13 

clever boy, if he falls behind the class, or is put into one 
for which he is not quite ready, can force his way to the 
situation which his abiUties really entitle him to hold. 
But, in the meanwhile, he is necessarily led to be the as- 
sociate and companion of those inferior spirits with whom s 
he is placed ; for the system of precedence, though it does 
not limit the general intercourse among the boys, has 
nevertheless the effect of throwing them into clubs and 
coteries, according to the \dcinity of the seats they hold. 
A boy of good talents, therefore, placed even for a time lo 
among his inferiors, especially if they be also his elders, 
learns to participate in their pursuits and objects of ambi- 
tion, which are usually very distinct from the acquisition 
of learning ; and it will be well if he does not also imitate 
them in that indifference which is contented with busthng 15 
over a lesson so as to avoid punishment, without affecting 
superiority or aiming at reward. It was probably owing 
to this circumstance, that, although at a more advanced 
period of hfe I have enjoyed considerable facility in ac- 
quiring languages, I did not make any great figure at the 20 
High School — or, at least, any exertions which I made 
were desultory and httle to be depended on. 

Our class contained some very excellent scholars. As 
for myself, I glanced hke a meteor from one end of the 
class to the other, and commonly disgusted my kind master 25 
as much by negligence and frivolit}^, as I occasionally 
pleased him by flashes of intellect and talent. Among my 
companions, my good-nature and a flow of ready imagina- 
tion rendered me very popular. Boys are uncommonly 
just in their feehngs, and at least equally generous. My 30 
lameness, and the efforts which I made to supply that 
disadvantage, by making up in address what I wanted in 
activity, engaged the latter principle in my favour; and 



14 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

in the winter play hours, when hard exercise was im- 
possible, my tales used to assemble an admiring audience 
round Lucky Brown's fire-side, and happy was he that 
could sit next to the inexhaustible narrator. I was also, 
S though often negligent of my own task, always ready to 
assist my friends ; and hence I had a little party of staunch 
partisans and adherents, stout of hand and heart, though 
somewhat dull of head — the very tools for raising a hero 
to eminence. So, on the whole, I made a brighter figure 

lo in the yards than in the class. 

After having been three years under Mr. Fraser, our 
class was, in the usual routine of the school, turned over to 
Dr. Adam, the Rector. It was from this respectable man 
that I first learned the value of the knowledge I had 

15 hitherto considered only as a burdensome task. It was 
the fashion to remain two years at his class, where we read 
CsQsar, and Livy, and Sallust, in prose; Virgil, Horace, 
and Terence, in verse. I had by this time mastered, in 
some degree, the difficulties of the language, and began to 

20 be sensible of its beauties. This was really gathering 
grapes from thistles ; nor shall I soon forget the swelling of 
my little pride when the Rector pronounced, that though 
many of my school-fellows understood the Latin better, 
Gualterus Scott was behind few in following and enjoying 

25 the author's meaning. Thus encouraged, I distinguished 
myself by some attempts at poetical versions from Horace 
and Virgil. Dr. Adam used to invite his scholars to such 
essays, but never made them tasks. I gained some dis- 
tinction upon these occasions, and the Rector in future took 

30 much notice of me; and his judicious mixture of censure 
and praise went far to counterbalance my habits of in- 
dolence and inattention. I saw I was expected to do well, 
and I was piqued in honour to vindicate my master's 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 15 

favourable opinion. I climbed, therefore, to the first 
form ; and, though I never made a first-rate Latinist, my 
school-fellows, and what was of more consequence, I 
myself, considered that I had a character of learning to 
maintain. Dr. Adam, to whom I owed so much, never 5 
failed to remind me of my obhgations when I had made 
some figure in the hterary world. He was, indeed, deeply 
imbued with that fortunate vanity wliich alone could 
induce a man who has arms to pare and burn a muir,° to 
submit to the yet more toilsome task of cultivating youth. 10 

From Dr. Adam's class I should, according to the usual 
routine, have proceeded immediately to college. But, for- 
tunately, I was not yet to lose, by a total dismission from 
constraint, the acquaintance with the Latin which I had 
acquired. My health had become rather deUcate from 15 
rapid growth, and my father was easily persuaded to allow 
me to spend half-a-year at Kelso with my kind aunt, Miss 
Janet Scott, whose inmate I again became. It was hardly 
worth mentioning that I had frequently \dsited her during 
our short vacations. 20 

At this time she resided in a small house, situated very 
pleasantly in a large garden, to the eastward of the church- 
yard of Kelso, which extended down to the Tweed. My 
time was here left entirely to my own disposal excepting 
for about four hours in the day, when I was expected to 25 
attend the Grammar-school of the village. The teacher, 
at that time, was Mr. Lancelot Whale, an excellent classical 
scholar, a humourist, and a worthy man. 

In the mean while my acquaintance with EngUsh htera- 
ture was gradually extending itself. In the intervals of 30 
my school hours I had alwaj^s perused mth avidity such 
books of historj^ or poetry or voyages and travels as chance 
presented to me — not forgetting the usual, or rather ten 



16 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

times the usual, quantity of fairy tales, eastern stories, 
romances, &c. These studies were totally unregulated and 
undirected. My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a 
profane play or poem ; and my mother, besides that she 
5 might be in some degree trammelled by the rehgious 
scruples which he suggested, had no longer the oppor- 
tunity to hear me read poetry as formerly. I found, how- 
ever, in her dressing-room (where I slept at one time) some 
odd volumes of Shakspeare, nor can I easily forget the 

lo rapture with which I sate up in my shirt reading them by 
the light of a fire in her apartment, until the bustle of the 
family rising from supper warned me it was time to creep 
back to my bed, where I was supposed to have been safely 
deposited since nine o'clock. Chance, however, threw in 

15 my way a poetical preceptor. This was no other than the 
excellent and benevolent Dr. Blacklock, well known at that 
time as a hterary character. I know not how I attracted 
his attention, and that of some of the young men who 
boarded in his family ; but so it was that I became a fre- 

20 quent and favoured guest. The kind old man opened to 
me the stores of his hbrary, and through his recominenda- 
tion I became intimate wdth Ossian° and Spenser. ° I was 
dehghted with both, yet I think chiefly with the latter 
poet. The tawdry repetitions of the Ossianic phraseology 

25 disgusted me rather sooner than might have been expected 
from my age. But Spenser I could have read for ever. 
Too young to trouble myseK about the allegory, I con- 
sidered all the knights and ladies and dragons and giants 
in their outward and exoteric sense, and God only knows 

30 how delighted I was to find myself in such society. As I 
had always a wonderful facility in retaining in my memory 
whatever verses pleased me, the quantity of Spenser's 
stanzas which I could repeat was really marvellous. But 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 17 

this memory of mine was a very fickle ally, and has through 
my whole life acted merely upon its own capricious motion, 
and might have enabled me to adopt old Beattie of Meikle- 
dale's answer, when complimented by a certain reverend 
divine on the strength of the same faculty : — ''No, sir," 5 
answered the old Borderer, ''I have no command of my 
memory. It only retains what hits my fancy, and prob- 
ably, sir, if you were to preach to me for two hours, I 
would not be able when you finished to remember a word 
you had been saying." My memory was precisely of the 10 
same kind : it seldom failed to preserve most tenaciously a 
favourite passage of poetry, a plaj^-house ditty, or, above 
all, a Border-raid ballad ; but names, dates, and the other 
technicaUties of history, escaped me in a most melanchol}^ 
degree. The philosophy of history, a much more impor- 15 
tant subject, was also a sealed book at this period of my 
fife ; but I gradually assembled much of what was striking 
and picturesque in historical narrative ; and w^hen, in riper 
years, I attended more to the deduction of general prin- 
ciples, I was furnished with a powerful host of examples in 20 
illustration of them. I was, in short, like an ignorant 
gamester, who kept up a good hand until he knew how to 
play it. 

I left the High School, therefore, with a great quantity 
of general information, ill arranged, indeed, and collected 25 
without system, j^et deepl}^ impressed upon my mind; 
readily assorted by my power of connexion and memory, 
and gilded, if I may be permitted to say so, by a vivid and 
active imagination. If my studies were not under any 
direction at Edinburgh, in the country, it may be well 30 
imagined, they w^ere less so. A respectable subscription 
library, a circulating library of ancient standing, and some 
private book-shelves, were open to my random perusal, 
c 



18 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

and I waded into the stream like a blind man into a ford, 
without the power of searching my way, unless by grop- 
ing for it. My appetite for books was as ample and in- 
discriminating as it was indefatigable, and I since have 
5 had too frequently reason to repent that few ever read 
so much, and to so httle purpose. 

Among the valuable acquisitions I made about this time, 
was an acquaintance with Tasso's° Jerusalem Delivered, 
through the flat medium of Mr. Hoole's° translation. But 

lo above all, I then first became acquainted with Bishop 
Percy's^ Reliques of Ancient Poetry. As I had been from 
infancy devoted to legendary lore of this nature, and only 
reluctantly withdrew my attention, from the scarcity of 
materials and the rudeness of those which I possessed, it 

15 may be imagined, but cannot be described, with what de- 
light I saw pieces of the same kind which had amused my 
childhood, and still continued in secret the Dehlahs° of my 
imagination, considered as the subject of sober research, 
grave commentar}^, and apt illustration, by an editor who 

20 shewed his poetical genius was capable of emulating the 
best qualities of what his pious labour preserved. I re- 
member well the spot where I read these volumes for the 
first time. It was beneath a huge platanus-tree, in the 
ruins of what had been intended for an old-fashioned ar- 

25 bour in the garden I have mentioned. The summer-day 
sped onward so fast, that notwithstanding the sharp ap- 
petite of thirteen, I forgot the hour of dinner, was sought 
for with anxiety, and was still found entranced in my in- 
tellectual banquet. To read and to remember was in this 

30 instance the same thing, and henceforth I overwhelmed 
my school-fellows, and all who would hearken to me, with 
tragical recitations from the ballads of Bishop Percy. The 
first time, too, I could scrape a few shilhngs together, 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 19 

which were not common occurrences with me, I bought 
unto mj'self a copy of these beloved vohimes; nor do I 
beheve I ever read a book half so frequently, or with half 
the enthusiasm. About this period also I became ac- 
quainted with the works of Richardson, ° and those of s 
Mackenzie° — (whom in later years I became entitled to 
call my friend) — with Fielding,° Smollet,° and some 
others of our best novelists. 

To this period also I can trace distinctly the awaking of 
that delightful feeling for the beauties of natural objects lo 
which has never since deserted me. The neighbourhood 
of Kelso, the most beautiful, if not the most romantic 
village in Scotland, is eminently calculated to awaken these 
ideas. It presents objects, not only grand in themselves, 
but venerable from their association. The meeting of two 15 
superb rivers, the Tweed and the Te^^ot, both renowned 
in song — the ruins of an ancient Abbej^ — the more dis- 
tant vestiges of Roxburgh Castle — the modern mansion 
of Fleurs, which is so situated as to combine the ideas of 
ancient baronial grandeur with those of modern taste — 20 
are in themselves objects of the first class; 3^et are so 
mixed, united, and melted among a thousand other beau- 
ties of a less prominent description, that they harmonize 
into one general picture, and please rather by unison than 
b}^ concord. I believe I have written uninteUigibly upon 25 
this subject, but it is fitter for the pencil than the pen. 
The romantic feelings which I have described as predomi- 
nating in my mind, naturally rested upon and associated 
themselves with these grand features of the landscape 
around me; and the historical incidents, or traditional 30 
legends connected with many of them, gave to my admira- 
tion a sort of intense impression of reverence, which at 
times made my heart feel too big for its bosom. From 



20 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

this time the love of natural beauty, more especially when 
combined with ancient ruins, or remains of our fathers' 
piety or splendour, became with me an insatiable passion, 
which, if circumstances had permitted, I would willingly 

5 have gratified by travelling over half the globe. 

I was recalled to Edinburgh about the time when the 
College meets, and put at once to the Humanity class, 
under Mr. Hill, and the first Greek class, taught by Mr. 
Dalzell. The former held the reins of discipline very 

10 loosely, and though beloved by his students — for he was 
a good-natured man as well as a good scholar — he had 
not the art of exciting our attention as well as liking. This 
was a dangerous character with whom to trust one who 
rehshed labour as little as I did ; and amid the riot of his 

15 class I speedily lost much of what I had learned under 
Adam and Whale. At the Greek class, I might have made 
a better figure, for Professor Dalzell maintained a great 
deal of authority, and was not only himself an admirable 
scholar, but was always deeply interested in the progress of 

20 his students. But here lay the villany. Almost all my 
companions who had left the High School at the same time 
with myself, had acquired a smattering of Greek before 
they came to College. I, alas ! had none ; and finding 
myself far inferior to all my fellow-students, I could hit 

25 upon no better mode of vindicating my equality than by 
professing my contempt for the language, and my resolu- 
tion not to learn it. A youth who died early, himself an 
excellent Greek scholar, saw my negligence and folly with 
pain, instead of contempt. He came to call on me in 

30 George's Square, and pointed out in the strongest terms 
the silliness of the conduct I had adopted, told me I was 
distinguished by the name of the Greek Blockhead, and 
exhorted me to redeem my reputation while it was called 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 21 

to-day. My stubborn pride received this advice with 
sulky civihty ; the birth of my Mentor (whose name was 
Archibald, the son of an inn-keeper) did not, as I thought 
in my folly, authorize him to intrude upon me his advice. 
The other was not sharp-sighted, or his consciousness of a 5 
generous intention overcame his resentment. He offered 
me his daily and nightly assistance, and pledged himself 
to bring me forward with the foremost of my class. I felt 
some t^\dnges of conscience, but they were unable to pre- 
vail over ni}^ pride and self-conceit. The poor lad left me 10 
more in sorrow than in anger, nor did we ever meet again. 
All hopes of my progress in the Greek were now over; 
insomuch that when we were required to write essays on 
the authors we had studied, I hacl the audacity to produce 
a composition in which I weighed Homer against AriostO, 15 
and pronounced him wanting in the balance. I supported 
this heresy by a profusion of bad reading and flimsy ar- 
gument. The wrath of the Professor was extreme, while 
at the same time he could not suppress liis surprise at the 
quantity of out-of-the-way knowledge which I displayed. 20 
He pronounced upon me the severe sentence — that dunce 
I was, and dunce was to remain — which, however, my 
excellent and learned friend lived to revoke over a bottle 
of Burgundy, at our literary Club at Fortune's, of which 
he was a distinguished member. 25 

Meanwhile, as if to eradicate my slightest tincture of 
Greek, I fell ill during the middle of Mr. Dalzell's second 
class, and migrated a second time to Kelso — where I again 
continued a long time reading what and how I pleased, and 
of course reading nothing but what afforded me immediate 30 
entertainment. The only thing which saved my mind 
from utter dissipation, was that turn for historical pursuit, 
which never abandoned me even at the idlest period. I 



22 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

had forsworn the Latin classics for no reason I know of, 
unless because they were akin to the Greek ; but the oc- 
casional perusal of Buchanan's ° history, that of Mathew 
of Paris, ° and other monkish chronicles, kept up a kind of 
5 familiarity with the language even in its rudest state. 
But I forgot the very letters of the Greek alphabet; a 
loss never to be repaired, considering what that language 
is, and who they were who employed it in their composi- 
tions. 

lo About this period — or soon afterwards — my father 
judged it proper I should study mathematics; a study 
upon which I entered with all the ardour of novelty. My 
tutor was an aged person. Dr. MacFait, who had in his 
time been distinguished as a teacher of this science. Age, 

IS however, and some domestic inconveniences, had dimin- 
ished his pupils, and lessened his authority amongst the few 
who remained. I think, that had I been more fortunately 
placed for in3truction, or had I had the spur of emulation, 
I might have made some progress in this science, of which, 

20 under the circumstances I have mentioned, I only acquired 
a very superficial smattering. 

In other studies I was rather more fortunate. I made 
some progress in Ethics under Professor John Bruce, and 
was selected as one of his students whose progress he ap- 

25 proved, to read an essay, before Principal Robertson. I 
was farther instructed in Moral Philosophy at the class of 
Mr. Dugald Stewart, whose striking and impressive elo- 
quence riveted the attention even of the most volatile 
student. To sum up my academical studies, I attended 

30 the class of History, then taught bj'' the present Lord 
Woodhouselee, and, as far as I remember, no others, ex- 
cepting those of the Civil and Municipal Law. So that, if 
my learning be flimsy and inaccurate, the reader must 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 23 

have some compassion even for an idle workman who had 
so narrow a foundation to build upon. If, however, it 
should ever fall to the lot of j^outh to peruse these pages — 
let such a reader remember, that it is with the deepest 
regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of s 
learning which I neglected in my youth; that through 
every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and 
hampered b}^ my own ignorance ; and that I would at this 
moment give half the reputation I have had the good for- 
tune to acquire, if bj^ doing so I could rest the remaining lo 
part upon a sound foundation of learning and science. 

I imagine my father's reason for sending me to so few 
classes in the College, was a desire that I should apply my- 
self particularly to my legal studies. He had not deter- 
mined whether I should fill the situation of an Advocate xs 
or a Writer; but judiciously considering the technical 
knowledge of the latter to be useful at least, if not essen- 
tial, to a barrister, he resolved I should serve the ordinary 
apprenticeship of five years to his own profession. I 
accordingly entered into indentures with my father about 20 
1785-6, and entered upon the dry and barren wilderness 
of forms and conveyances. 

I cannot reproach myself with being entirelj^ an idle 
apprentice — far less, as the reader might reasonably have 
expected, 25 

"A clerk foredoom'd my father's soul to cross." 

The drudgery, indeed, of the office I disliked, and the con- 
finement I altogether detested ; but I loved my father, and 
I felt the rational pride and pleasure of rendering myseK 
useful to him. I was ambitious also ; and among my com- 30 
panions in labour, the only way to gratify ambition was to 
labour hard and well. Other circumstances reconciled 



24 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

me in some measure to the confinement. The allowance 
for copy-money furnished a little fund for the menus 
plaisirs° of the circulating library and the Theatre ; and 
this was no trifling incentive to labour. When actually 
5 at the oar, no man could pull it harder than I ; and I 
remember writing upwards of 120 folio pages with no 
interval either for food or rest. Again, the hours of at- 
tendance on the office were lightened by the power of 
choosing my own books, and reading them in my own way, 

lo which often consisted in beginning at the middle or the 
end of a volume. A deceased friend, who was a fellow- 
apprentice with me, used often to express his surprise 
that, after such a hop-step-and-jump perusal, I knew 
as much of the book as he had been able to acquire 

IS from reading it in the usual manner. My desk usually 
contained a store of most miscellaneous volumes, espe- 
cially works of fiction of every kind, which were my su- 
preme delight. I might except novels, unless those of the 
better and higher class ; for though I read many of them, 

2oyet it was with more selection than might have l^een ex- 
pected. The whole Jemm^y and Jenny Jessamy° tribe I 
abhorred ; and it required the art of Burney,° or the feeling 
of Mackenzie, ° to fix my attention upon a domestic tale. 
But all that was adventurous and romantic I devoured 

25 without much discrimination, and I really believe I have 
read as much nonsense of this class as any man now living. 
Everything which touched on knight-errantry was particu- 
larly acceptable to me, and I soon attempted to imitate 
what I so greatly admired. My efforts, however, were in 

30 the manner of the tale-teller, not of the bard. 

My greatest intimate, from the days of my school-tide, 
was Mr. John Irving, now a Writer to the Signet. We 
lived near each other, and by joint agreement were wont, 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 25 

each of us, to compose a romance for the other's amuse- 
ment. These legends, in which the martial and the mirac- 
ulous always predominated, we rehearsed to each other 
during our walks, which were usually directed to the most 
solitary spots about Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags. $ 
We naturalh^ sought seclusion, for we were conscious no 
small degree of ridicule would have attended our amuse- 
ment, if the nature of it had become known. Whole holi- 
days were spent in this singular pastime, which continued 
for two or three years, and had, I believe, no small effect lo 
in directing the turn of my imagination to the chivalrous 
and romantic in poetry and prose. 

Meanwhile, the translations of Mr. Hoole having made 
me acquainted with Tasso and Ariosto, I learned from his 
notes on the latter, that the Italian language contained a 15 
fund of romantic lore. A part of my earnings was dedi- 
cated to an Italian class which I attended twice a-week, 
and rapidly acc^uired some proficiency. I had previously 
renewed and extended my knowledge of the French lan- 
guage, from the same principle of romantic research. 20 
Tressan's romances, the Bibliotheque Bleue, and Biblio- 
theque de Romans, were already familiar to me ; and I 
now acquired similar intimacy with the works of Dante, 
Boiardo, Pulci, and other eminent Italian authors. I 
fastened also, hke a tiger, upon every collection of old 25 
songs or romances which chance threw in my way, or 
which my scrutiny was able to discover on the dusty 
shelves of James Sibbald's circulating library in the Par- 
liament Square. This collection, now dismantled and 
dispersed, contained at that time many rare and curious 30 
works, seldom found in such a collection. Mr. Sibbald 
himself, a man of rough manners but of some taste and 
judgment, cultivated music and poetry, and in his shop 



26 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

I had a distant view of some literary characters, besides 
the privilege of ransacking the stores of old French and 
Italian books, which were in little demand among the bulk 
of his subscribers. Here I saw the unfortunate Andrew 
s Macdonald,° author of Vimonda ; and here, too, I saw at 
a distance, the boast of Scotland, Robert Burns. 

My frame gradually became hardened with my consti- 
tution, and being both tall and muscular, I was rather 
disfigured than disabled by my lameness. This personal 

lo disadvantage did not prevent me from taking much 
exercise on horseback, and making long journeys on foot, 
in the course of which I often walked from twenty to thirty 
miles a da}^ A distinct instance occurs to me. I re- 
member walking with poor James Ramsay, my fellow- 

15 apprentice, now no more, and two other friends, to break- 
fast at Prestonpans. We spent the forenoon in visiting 
the ruins at Seton and the field of battle at Preston° — 
dined at Prestonpans on tiled haddocks° very sumptuously 
— drank half a bottle of port each, and returned in the 

20 evening. This could not be less than thirty miles, nor do 
I remember being at all fatigued upon the occasion. 

These excursions on foot or horseback formed by far 
my most favourite amusement. I have all my life de- 
lighted in travelling, though I have never enjoyed that 

25 pleasure upon a large scale. It was a propensity which I 
sometimes indulged so unduly as to alarm and vex my 
parents. Wood, water, wilderness itself, had an inex- 
pressible charm for me, and I had a dreamy way of going 
much further than I intended, so that unconsciously my 

30 return was protracted, and my parents had sometimes 
serious cause of uneasiness. For example, I once set 
out with Mr. George Abercromby (the son of the immortal 
Generar), Mr. WiUiam Clerk, and some others, to fish 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 27 

in the lake above Howgate, and the stream which de- 
scends from it into the Esk. We breakfasted at How- 
gate, and fished the whole day ; and while we were on our 
return next morning, I was easily seduced by William 
Clerk, then a great intimate, to visit Pennycuik-House, 5 
the seat of his family. Here he and John Irving, and I 
for their sake, were overwhelmed with kindness by the 
late Sir John Clerk and his lady, the present Dowager 
Lady Clerk. The pleasure of looking at fine pictures, the 
beauty of the place, and the flattering hospitahty of the 10 
owners, drowned all recollection of home for a day or 
two. Meanwhile our companions, w^ho had walked on 
without being aware of our digression, returned to Edin- 
burgh without us, and excited no small alarm in my fath- 
er's household. At length, however, they became ac- 15 
customed to my escapades. My father used to protest 
to me on such occasions that he thought I was born to be 
a strolling pedlar ; and though the prediction was intended 
to mortify my conceit, I am not sure that I altogether 
disliked it. I was now familiar with Shakspeare, and 20 
thought of Autolycus's° song — 

"Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, 
And merrily hent the stile-a ; 
A merry heart goes all the day, 

Your sad tires in a mile-a." 25 

My principal object in these excursions was the pleasure 
of seeing romantic scenery, or what afforded me at least 
equal pleasure, the places which had been distinguished 
by remarkable historical events. The delight with which 
I regarded the former, of course had general approbation, 30 
but I often found it difficult to procure sj^mpathy with the 
interest I felt in the latter. Yet to me, the wandering 



28 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

over the field of Bannockburn° was the source of more 
exquisite pleasure than gazing upon the celebrated land- 
scape from the battlements of Stirling castle. I do not 
by any means infer that I was dead to the f eehng of pic- 
sturesque scenery; on the contrary, few delighted more 
in its general effect. But I was unable with the eye of 
a painter to dissect the various parts of the scene, to com- 
prehend how the one bore upon the other, to estimate the 
effect which various features of the view had in producing 

lo its leading and general effect. I have never, indeed, been 
capable of doing this with precision or nicety, though my 
latter studies have led me to amend and arrange my 
original ideas upon the subject. Even the humble am- 
bition, which I long cherished, of making sketches of 

15 those places which interested me, from a defect of eye 
or of hand was totally ineffectual. After long study and 
many efforts, I was unable to apply the elements of per- 
spective or of shade to the scene before me, and was 
obliged to rehnquish in despair an art which I was most 

20 anxious to practise. But shew me an old castle or a 
field of battle, and I was at home at once, filled it with 
its combatants in their proper costume, and overwhelmed 
my hearers by the enthusiasm of my description. In 
crossing Magus Moor, near St. Andrews, the spirit moved 

25 me to give a picture of the assassination of the Archl^ishop 
of St. Andrews to some fellow-travellers with whom I was 
accidentally associated, and one of them, though well 
acquainted with the story, protested my narrative had 
frightened away his night's sleep. I mention this to shew 

30 the distinction between a sense of the picturesque in 
action and in scenery. If I have since been able in poetry 
to trace with some success the principles of the latter, 
it has always been with reference to its general and lead- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 29 

ing features, or under some alliance with moral feeling; 
and even this proficiency has cost me study. — Mean- 
while I endeavoured to make amends for my ignorance 
of dravvdng, by adopting a sort of technical memory 
respecting the scenes I visited. Wherever I went I cuts 
a piece of a branch from a tree — these constituted what 
I called my log-book; and I intended to have a set of 
chessmen out of them, each having reference to the place 
where it was cut — as the kings from Falkland" and Holy- 
Rood° ; the queens from Queen Mary's yew tree at Crooks- lo 
ton° ; the bishops from abbeys or episcopal palaces ; the 
knights from baronial residences; the rooks from royal 
fortresses; and the pawns generally from places worthy 
of liistorical note. But tliis whimsical design I never 
carried into execution. 15 

With music it was even worse than with painting. My 
mother was anxious we should at least learn Psalmody, 
but the incurable defects of my voice and ear soon drove 
my teacher to despair. It is only by long practice that I 
have acquired the power of selecting or distinguishing 20 
melodies; and although now few things dehght or affect 
me more than a simple tune sung with feehng, yet I am 
sensible that even this pitch of musical taste has only 
been gained by attention and habit, and, as it were, by 
my feehng of the words being associated vAih the tune. 25 
I have therefore been usually unsuccessful in composing 
words to a tune, although my friend Dr. Clarke, and other 
musical composers, have sometimes been able to make a 
happy union between their music and my poetry. 

In other points, however, I began to make some amends 30 
for the irregularity of mj'- education. It is well known 
that in Edinburgh one great spur to emulation among 
youthful students is in those associations called literary 



30 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

societies, formed not only for the purpose of debate, but 
of composition. I am particularly obliged to this sort of 
club for introducing me about my seventeenth year into 
the society which at one time I had entirely dropped; 
S for, from the time of my illness at college, I had had little 
or no intercourse with any of my class-companions, one 
or two only excepted. Now, however, about 1788, I 
began to feel and take my ground in society. A ready wit, 
a good deal of enthusiasm, and a perception that soon 

lo ripened into tact and observation of character, rendered 
me an acceptable companion to many young men whose 
acquisitions in philosophy and science were infinitely 
superior to any thing I could boast. 

Looking back on these times, I cannot applaud in all 

IS respects the way in which our days were spent. There 
was too much idleness, and sometimes too much convivi- 
ality : but our hearts were warm, our minds honourably 
bent on knowledge and literary distinction; and if I, cer- 
tainly the least informed of the party, may be permitted 

20 to bear witness, we were not without the fair and creditable 
means of attaining the distinction to which we aspired. 
In this society I was naturally led to correct my former 
useless course of reading; for — feehng myself greatly 
inferior to my companions in metaphysical philosophy 

25 and other branches of regular study — I laboured, not 
without some success, to acquire at least such a portion of 
knowledge as might enable me to maintain my rank in 
conversation. In this I succeeded pretty well; but un- 
fortunately then, as often since through my life, I incurred 

30 the deserved ridicule of my friends from the superficial 
nature of my acquisitions, which being, in the mercantile 
phrase, got up for society, very often proved flimsy in the 
texture; and thus the gifts of an uncommonly retentive 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 31 

memory and acute powers of perception were sometimes 
detrimental to their possessor, b}' encouraging him to a 
presumptuous reliance upon them. 

Amidst these studies, and in this society, the time of my 
apprenticeship elapsed ; and in 1790, or thereabouts, it 5 
became necessary that I should seriously consider to which 
department of the law I was to attach myself. My father 
behaved with the most parental kindness. He offered, 
if I preferred his own profession, immediately to take me 
into partnership with him, which, though his business was 10 
much diminished, still afforded me an immediate prospect of 
a handsome independence. But he did not disguise his wish 
that I should reUnquish this situation to uvy younger 
brother, and embrace the more ambitious profession of 
the bar. I had little hesitation in making my choice — 15 
for I was never very fond of money ; and in no other par- 
ticular do the professions admit of a comparison. The 
bar, though I was conscious of my deficiencies as a public 
speaker, was the hne of ambition and hberty ; it was that 
also for which most of my contemporary friends were 20 
destined. And, lastly, although I would wilhngly have 
reheved my father of the labours of his business, yet I 
saw plainly we could not have agreed on some particulars 
if we had attempted to conduct it together, and that I 
should disappoint his expectations if I did not turn to 25 
the bar. So to that object m}^ studies were directed with 
great ardour and perseverance during the years 1789, 
1790, 1791, 1792. 

This course of study enabled 7ne- to pass vAih credit the 
usual trials, which, by the regulations of the Faculty of 30 
Advocates, must be undergone bj^ every candidate for 
admission into their body. My friend William Clerk and 
I passed these ordeals on the same days — namely, the 



32 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Civil Law° trial on the [30th June 1791], and the Scots 
Law trial on the [6th July 1792]. On the [11th July 
1792], we both assumed the gown with all its duties and 
honours. 
5 My progress in life during these two or three years had 
been gradually enlarging my acquaintance, and facilitating 
my entrance into good company. My father and mother, 
alread}^ advanced in life, saw little society at home, except- 
ing that of near relations, or upon particular occasions, 

loso that I was left to form connexions in a great measure 
for myself. It is not difficult for a youth with a real desire 
to please and be pleased, to make his way into good society 
in Edinburgh — or indeed anywhere ; and my family 
connexions, if they did not greatly further, had nothing to 

15 embarrass my progress. I was a gentleman, and so 
welcome anywhere, if so be I could behave myself, as 
Tony Lumpkin° saj^s, ''in a concatenation accordingly." 



CHAPTER II 

Call to the Bar — Earh^ Friendships and Pursuits — Dis- 
appointment in Love — Excursions to the Highlands 
and Border — Publication of Ballads after Burger — 
Light-Horse Volunteers — 1792-1797. 

As may be said, I beheve, with perfect truth of every 
really great man, Scott was self-educated in every branch 
of knowledge which he ever turned to account in the 
works of his genius — and he has himself told us that his 
real studies were those lonely and desultory ones of which s 
he has given a copy in the first chapter of Waverley, 
where the hero is represented as ''driving through the sea 
of books, hke a vessel without pilot or rudder ; " that is to 
say, obeying nothing but the strong breath of native 
inclination. The literary details of that chapter maj^ all lo 
be considered as autobiographical. 

In all the studies of the two or three years preceding his 
call to the bar, his cliief associate was William Clerk; 
and, indeed, of all the connections he formed in life, I 
now doubt if there was one to whom he owed more. Yet 15 
both in his adoption, soon after that friendship began, of 
a somewhat superior tone of manners and habits generallj^, 
and in his ultimate decision for the bar, as well as in his 
strenuous preparation during a considerable space of 
time for that career, there is little question that another 20 
influence must have powerfully co-operated. His friends, 
I have heard more than one of them confess, used often 
to rally him on the coldness of his nature. By degrees ' 
they discovered that he had, from almost the dawn of the 
D 33 



34 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

passions, cherished a secret attachment, which continued, 
through all the most perilous stage of life, to act as a 
romantic charm in safeguard of virtue. This was the 
early and innocent affection to which we owe the tender- 

5 est pages, not only of Redgauntlet, but of the Laj^ of 
the Last Minstrel, and of Rokeby. In all of these 
works the heroine has certain distinctive features, drawn 
from one and the same haunting dream of his manly 
adolescence. 

lo It was about 1790, according to Mr. William Clerk, 
that Scott was observed to lay aside that carelessness, not 
to say slovenliness, as to dress, which used to furnish 
matter for joking at the beginning of their acquaintance. 
He now did himself more justice in these little matters, 

15 became fond of mixing in general female society, and, as 
his friend expresses it, ''began to set up for a squire of 
dames." 

His personal appearance at this time was not unengaging. 
A lady of high rank, who well remembers him in the Old 

2o Assembly Rooms, says, "Young Walter Scott was a comely 
creature." ^ He had outgrown the sallowness of early ill 
health, and had a fresh brilliant complexion. His eyes 
were clear, open, and well set, with a changeful radiance, 
to which teeth of the most perfect regularity and whiteness 

2 5 lent their assistance, while the noble expanse and elevation 
of the brow gave to the whole aspect a dignity far above 
the charm of mere features. His smile was always de- 
lightful; and I can easily fancy the peculiar intermixture 
of tenderness and gravity, with playful innocent hilarity 

30 and humour in the expression, as being well calculated 
to fix a fair lady's eye. His figure, excepting the blemish 

^ The late Duchess Countess of Sutherland. 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 35 

in one limb, must in those days have been eminently 
handsome; tall, much above the usual standard, it was 
cast in the very mould of a young Hercules°; the head 
set on with singular grace, the throat and chest after the 
truest model of the antique, the hands delicately finished ; 5 
the whole outline that of extraordinary vigour, without 
as yet a touch of clumsiness. When he had acquired a 
little facilit}^ of manner, his conversation must have been 
such as could have dispensed with any exterior advantages, 
and certainly brought swift forgiveness for the one unkind- 10 
ness of nature. I have heard him, in talking of this part 
of his life, saj", with an arch simplicity of look and tone, 
which those who were familiar with him can fill in for 
themselves — ''It was a proud night with me when I 
first found that a pretty young woman could think it 15 
worth her while to sit and talk with me, hour after hour, 
in a corner of the ball-room, while all the world were 
capering in our view." 

I believe, however, that the ''pretty young woman" 
here specially alluded to, had occupied his attention before 20 
he ever appeared in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms, or 
any of his friends took note of him as "setting up for a 
squire of dames." I have been told that their acquaint- 
ance began in the Greyfriars' churchyard, where rain 
beginning to fall one Sunday as the congregation were 25 
dispersing, Scott happened to offer his umbrella, and the 
tender being accepted, so escorted the lady of the green 
mantle to her residence, which proved to be at no great 
distance from his own. To return from church together 
had, it seems, grown into something like a custom before 30 
they met in society, Mrs. Scott being of the party. It 
then appeared that she and the lady's mother had been 
companions in their youth, though, both hving secludedly, 



36 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

they had scarcely seen each other for many years ; and the 
two matrons now renewed their former intercourse. 
But no acquaintance appears to have existed between the 
fathers of the young people, until things had advanced 
5 in appearance farther than met the approbation of the 
good Clerk to the Signet. 

Being aware that the young lady — Margaret, daughter 
of Sir John and Lady Jane Stuart Belches of Invermay, 
had prospects of fortune far above his son's, Mr. Scott 

lo conceived it his duty to give her parents warning that he 
observed a degree of intimacy which, if allowed to go on, 
might involve the parties in pain and disappointment. 
He had heard his son talk of a contemplated excursion 
to the part of the country in which his neighbour's estates 

15 lay, and not doubting that Walter's real object was different 
from that which he announced, introduced himself with a 
frank statement that he wished no such affair to proceed, 
without the express sanction of those most interested in 
the happiness of persons as yet too young to calculate 

20 consequences for themselves. — The northern Baronet 
had heard nothing of the young apprentice's intended 
excursion, and appeared to treat the whole business very 
lightly. He thanked Mr. Scott for his scrupulous atten- 
tion — but added, that he believed he was mistaken ; 

25 and this paternal interference, which Walter did not hear 
of till long afterwards, produced no change in his relations 
with the object of his growing attachment. 

I have neither the power nor the wish to give in detail 
the sequel of this story. It is sufficient to say, at present, 

30 that after he had through several years nourished the 
dreani of an ultimate union with this lady, his hopes 
terminated in her being married to the late Sir William 
Forbes, of Pitsligo, Baronet, a gentleman of the highest 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 37 

character, to whom some affectionate allusions occur in 
one of the greatest of his works, and who hved to act the 
part of a most generous friend to his earlx^ rival throughout 
the anxieties and distresses of 1826 and 1827. 

I venture to recall here to the reader's memory the open- s 
ing of the twelfth chapter of Peveril of the Peak, written 
twenty-six years after this youthful disappointment : — 
''The period at which love is formed for the first time, and 
felt most strongly, is seldom that at which there is much 
prospect of its being brought to a happy issue. The state lo 
of artificial societ}^ opposes many complicated obstruc- 
tions to earty marriages ; and the chance is very great that 
such obstacles prove insurmountable. In fine, there are 
few men who do not look back in secret to some period of 
their youth, at which a sincere and early affection was 15 
repulsed, or betrayed, or became abortive from opposing 
circumstances. It is these little passages of secret history 
which leave a tinge of romance in every bosom, scarce 
permitting us, even in the most busy or the most advanced 
period of life, to listen with total indifference to a tale of 20 
true love." 

Shortly after his admission to the bar, Scott made an 
expedition of great importance to the history of his life. 
While attending the Michaelmas° head-court at Jedburgh, 
he was introduced to Mr. Robert Shortreed, who spent the 25 
greater part of his life in the enjoyment of much respect as 
Sheriff-substitute of Roxburghshire. Scott expressed his 
wish to visit the then wild and inaccessible district of 
Liddesdale,° particularly with a view to examine the 
ruins of the famous castle of Hermitage, and to pick up 30 
some of the ancient riding ballads ° said to be still pre- 
served among the descendants of the moss-troopers° 
who had followed the banner of the Douglasses, ° when 



38 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

lords of that grim and remote fastness; and his new ac- 
quaintance offered to be his guide. 

During seven successive years he made a raid, as he 
called it, into Liddesdale, in company with Mr. Short- 

5 reed ; exploring every rivulet to its source, and every 
ruined 'peel from foundation to battlement. At this 
time no wheeled carriage had ever been seen in the dis- 
trict — the first, indeed, that ever appeared there was a 
gig, driven by Scott himself for a part of his way, when on 

lo the last of these seven excursions. There was no inn nor 
public-house of any kind in the whole valley ; the travel- 
lers passed from the shepherd's hut to the minister's 
manse, and again from the cheerful hospitality of the 
manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the homestead ; 

15 gathering, wherever they went, songs and tunes, and 
occasionally more tangible relics of antiquity — even such 
"a rowth of auld nicknackets" as Burns ascribes to Cap- 
tain Grose. To these rambles Scott owed much of the 
materials of his Minstrelsy of the Border ; and not less 

20 of that intimate acquaintance with the living manners of 
these unsophisticated regions, which constitutes the 
chief charm of one of the most charming of his prose works. 
But how soon he had any definite object before him in his 
researches, seems very doubtful. ''He was makin' him- 

2ssell a' the time," said Mr. Shortreed; ''but he didna ken 
maybe what he was about till years had passed : At first 
he thought 0' little, I dare say, but the queerness and the 
fun." 

"In those days," says the Memorandum before me, 

30 "advocates were not so plentj^ — at least about Liddes- 
dale;" and the worthy Sheriff-substitute goes on to 
describe the sort of bustle, not unmixed with alarm, pro- 
duced at the first farm-house they visited (Willie Elliot's 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 39 

at Millburnholm), when the honest man was informed of 
the quahty of one of his guests. When the}^ dismounted, 
accordingly, he received the stranger with great cere- 
mony, and insisted upon himself leading his horse to the 
stable. Shortreed accompanied Willie, however, and the 5 
latter, after taking a deliberate peep at Scott, ''out by 
the edge of the door-cheek," whispered, ''Weel, Robin, 
I say, de'il hae me if I's be a bit feared for him now ; he's 
just a chield like ourselves, I think." Half-a-dozen 
dogs of all degrees had alread}^ gathered round ''the 10 
advocate," and his waj^ of returning their compliments 
had set Willie at his ease. 

They dined at ]\Iillburnholm, and after having lingered 
over Willie Elliot's punch-bowl, until, in jMr. Shortreed's 
phrase, they were "half glowrin," mounted their steeds 15 
again, and proceeded to Dr. Elliot's at Cleughhead, where 
("for," says my Memorandum, "folk were na very nice 
in those days") the two travellers slept in one bed — as, 
indeed, seems to have been the case throughout most of 
their excursions in this district. Dr. Elliot had alread}' 20 
a MS. collection of ballads; but he now exerted himself, 
for several years, with redoubled diligence, in seeking out 
the Y\Y\ng depositaries of such lore among the darker 
recesses of the mountains. "The Doctor," says ]Mr. 
Shortreed, "would have gane through fire and water for 25 
Sir Walter, when he ance kenned him." "Eh me!" 
says Shortreed, "sic an endless fund o' humour and droll- 
ery as he then had wi' him ! Never ten yards but wt 
were either laughing or roaring and singing. Wherever 
we stopped, how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybod}* ! 30 
He ay did as the lave did; never made himsel' the great 
man, or took ony airs in the company." 

"It was in that same season, I think," says Mr. Short- 



40 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

reed, "that Sir Walter got from Dr. Elliot the large old 
border war-horn, which ye may still see hanging in the 
armoury at Abbotsford. How great he was when he was 
made master o' that ! I believe it had been found in Her- 
5 mitage Castle — and one of the Doctor's servants had 
used it many a day as a grease-horn for his scythe, 
before they discovered its history. When cleaned out, 
it was never a hair the worse — the original chain, hoop, 
and mouth-piece of steel, were all entire, just as you now 

10 see them. Sir Walter carried it home all the way from 
Liddesdale to Jedburgh, slung about his neck like Johnny 
Gilpin's bottle, while I was intrusted with an ancient 
bridle-bit, which we had likewise picked up. what 
pleasant days ! And then a' the nonsense we had cost 

15 us naething. We never put hand in pocket for a week 
on end. Toll-bars there were nane — and indeed I think 
our haill charges were a feed 0' corn to our horses in the 
gangin' and comin' at Riccartoun mill." 

In November 1792, Scott and Clerk began their regular 

20 attendance at the Parliament House, ° and Scott, to use 
Mr. Clerk's words, "by and by crept into a tolerable share 
of such business as may be expected from a writer's con- 
nexion." By this we are to understand that he was 
employed from time to time by his father, and probably 

25 a few other solicitors, in that dreary every-day taskwork, 
chiefly of long written informations, and other papers 
for the Court, on which young counsellors of the Scotch 
Bar were then expected to bestow a great deal of trouble 
for very scanty pecuniary remuneration, and with scarcely 

30 a chance of finding reserved for their hands any matter 
that could elicit the display of superior knowledge 
cr understanding. 

But he soon became as famous for his powers of story- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 41 

telling among the lawyers of the Outer-House, ° as he had 
been among the companions of his High-School days. The 
place where these idlers mostly congregated was called, 
it seems, by a name which sufficiently marks the date — 
it was the Mountain^ Mr. Clerk remembers complaining 5 
one morning on finding the group convulsed with laugh- 
ter, that Duns Scotus had been forestalhng him in a good 
story, which he had communicated privately the day 
before — adding, moreover, that liis friend had not only 
stolen, but disguised it. ''Why," answered he, skilfully 10 
waiving the main charge, ''this is always the way with 
the Baronet} He is continually saying that I change 
his stories, whereas in fact I onh^ put a cocked hat on their 
heads, and stick a cane into their hands — to make them 
fit for going into company." 15 

Some interest had been excited in Edinburgh as to the 
rising literature of Germany, by an essay of Mackenzie's 
in 1778, and a subsequent version of The Robbers, by Mr. 
Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee). About Christmas 1792, 
a German class was formed under a Dr. Willick, which 20 
included Scott, Clerk, Thomson, and Erskine; all of 
whom soon qualified themselves to taste the beauties of 
Schiller and Goethe in the original. This class contrib- 
uted greatly to Scott's familiarity with Erskine ; a famil- 
iarity which grew into one of the warmest and closest 25 
of his friendships. Nor can it be doubted that he exer- 
cised, at the active period we have now reached, a very 
important influence on his friend's hterary tastes, and 
especially on his German studies. From the beginning, 

1 Duns Scotus° was an old college-club nickname for 
Walter Scott, a tribute to his love of antiquities. Clerk 
was with the same set the Baronet, as belonging to the 
familv of the Baronets of Pennycuick. 



42 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Scott had in Erskine a monitor who, entering most warmly 
into his taste for national lore — the life of the past — 
and the bold and picturesque style of the original English 
school — was constantly urging the advantages to be 
5 derived from combining with its varied and masculine 
breadth of delineation such attention to the minor graces 
of arrangement and diction as might conciliate the fastid- 
iousness of modern taste. 

If the preceding autumn forms a remarkable point in 

lohis history, as first introducing him to the manners of 
the wilder Border country, the summer which followed 
left traces of equal importance. He then visited some of 
the finest districts of Stirlingshire and Perthshire ; and not 
in the precursory manner of his more boyish expeditions 

IS but taking up his residence for a week or ten days in suc- 
cession at the family residences of several of his young 
allies of The Mountain, and from thence familiarizing 
himself at leisure with the country and the people round 
about. In this way he lingered some time at Tullibody, 

20 the seat of the father of Sir Ralph Abercromby, and 
grandfather of his friend George Abercromb}'' ; and heard 
from the old gentleman's own lips the narrative of a jour- 
ney which he had been obliged to make to the retreat 
of Rob Roy. The venerable laird told how he was re- 

25 ceived by the cateran ''with much courtesy," in a cavern 
exactly such as that of Bean Lean° ; dined on collops cut 
from some of his own cattle, which he recognised hanging 
by their heels from the rocky roof beyond ; and returned 
in all safety, after concluding a bargain of black-mail — 

30 in virtue of which annual paym.ent, Rob Roy guaranteed 
the future security of his herds against, not his own fol- 
lowers merely, but all freebooters whatever. Scott next 
visited his friend Edmonstone, at Newton, a beautiful 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 43 

seat close to the ruins of the once magnificent Castle 
of Doune, and heard another aged gentleman's vi\dd 
recollections of all that happened there when John Home, 
the author of Douglas, and other Hanoverian prisoners, 
escaped from the Highland garrison in 1745. Proceeding 5 
towards the sources of the Teith, he was received for the 
first time under a roof which, in subsequent j^ears, he reg- 
ularly revisited, that of another of his associates, Bu- 
chanan, the young Laird of Cambusmore. It was thus that 
the scenery of Loch Katrine came to be so associated with 10 
''the recollection of many a dear friend and merry expe- 
dition of former days," that to compose the Lady of the 
Lake was ''a labour of love, and no less so to recall the 
manners and incidents introduced." ^ It was starting 
from the same house, when the poem itself had made some 15 
progress, that he put to the test the practicability of riding 
from the banks of Loch Vennachar to the Castle of Stirling 
within the brief space which he had assigned to Fitz- 
James's Grej^ Bayard, after the duel with Roderick Dhu ; 
and the principal land-marks in the description of that 20 
fiery progress are so many hospitable mansions, all fa- 
miliar to him at the same period : — Blair-drummond, the 
residence of Lord Kaimes; Ochtertyre, that of John 
Ramsay, the scholar and antiquary (now best remembered 
for his kind and sagacious advice to Burns ;) and ''the lofty 25 
brow of ancient Kier," the fine seat of the chief family 
of the name of Stirling; from which, to say nothing of 
remoter objects, the prospect has on one hand the rock 
of "Snowdon," and in front the field of Bannockburn. 

Another resting place was Craighall, in Perthshire, the 30 
seat of the Rattrays, a family related to Mr. Clerk, who 

^ Introduction to The Lady of the Lake. 



44 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

accompanied him. From the position of this striking 
place, as Mr. Clerk at once perceived, and as the author 
afterwards confessed to him, that of TuUy-Veolan was 
faithfully copied; though in the description of the house 
S itself, and its gardens, many features were adopted from 
Bruntsfield and Ravelstone. Mr. Clerk told me that he 
went through the first chapters of Waverley without more 
than a vague suspicion of the new novelist ; but that when 
he read the arrival at Tully-Veolan, his suspicion was 

lo converted into certainty, and he handed the book to a 
common friend of his and the author's, sa5dng, ''This is 
Scott's — and I'll lay a bet you'll find such and such 
things in the next chapter." I hope to be forgiven for 
mentioning the circumstance that flashed conviction. 

15 In the course of a ride from Craighall, they had both 
become considerably fagged and heated, and Clerk, 
seeing the smoke of a clachan a little way before them, 
ejaculated — "How agreeable if we should here fall in 
with one of those signposts where a red lion predominates 

20 over a punch-bowl!" The phrase happened to tickle 
Scott's fanc}^ — he often introduced it on similar occa- 
sions afterwards — and at the distance of twenty years 
Mr. Clerk was at no loss to recognise an old acquaintance 
in the ''huge bear" which "predominates" over the stone 

25 basin in the courtyard of Baron Bradwardine. 

I believe the longest stay was at Meigle in Forfarshire, 
the seat of Patrick Murray of Simprim, whose passion for 
antiquities, especially military antiquities, had peculiarly 
endeared him both to Scott and Clerk. Here Adam 

30 Fergusson, too, was of the party ; and I have often heard 
them each and all dwell on the thousand scenes of adven- 
ture and merriment which diversified that visit. In the 
village churchyard, close beneath Mr. Murray's gardens, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 45 

tradition still points out the tomb of Queen Guenever°; 
and the whole district abounds in objects of historical 
interest. Amidst them thej^ spent their wandering days, 
while their evenings passed in the joyous festivity of a 
wealthy j^oung bachelor's establishment, or sometimes s 
under the roofs of neighbours less refined than their host, 
the Balmawhapples° of the Braes of Angus. From Meigle 
they made a trip to Dunottar Castle, the ruins of the 
huge old fortress of the Earls Marischall, and it was in 
the churchyard of that place that Scott then saw for the lo 
first and last time Peter Paterson, the li\'ing Old Mortality. 

If his father had some reason to complain of want of 
ardour as to the weightier matters of the law, it probably 
gave him little consolation to hear, in June 1795, of his 
appointment to be one of the curators of the Advocates' 15 
Library, an office always reserved for those members of 
the Faculty who have the reputation of superior zeal in 
literary affairs. From the first assumption of the gown, 
he had been accustomed to spend many of his hours in 
the low gloomy vaults under the Parliament House, which 20 
then formed the only receptacle for their literary and anti- 
quarian collections. This habit, it may be supposed, grew 
by what it fed on. MSS. can only be consulted within 
the library, and his highland and border raids were con- 
stantly suggesting inquiries as to ancient local history- and 25 
legends, w^hich could nowhere else have been pursued with 
equal advantage. He became an adept in the deciphering 
of old deeds; and whoever examines the rich treasure 
of the MacFarlan MSS., and others serviceable for the 
illustration of Scotch topography and genealogy, will, 30 
I am told, soon become familiar with the marks of his 
early pencil. 

After his early disappointment in love, Scott seems to 



46 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

have turned with renewed ardour to his hterary pursuits ; 
and in that same October, 1796, he was "prevailed on," 
as he playfully expresses it, "by the request of friends, to 
indulge his own vanity, by publishing the translation of 
5 Lenore, with that of the Wild Huntsman, also from Biir- 
ger, in a thin quarto." He had owed his copy of Burger 
to a young gentlewoman of high German blood, who in 
1795 became the wife of his friend and chief Hugh Scott 
of Harden. The young kinsman was introduced to her 

lo soon after her arrival at Mertoun, and his attachment to 
German studies excited her attention and interest. I 
have often heard him say, that among those many "obli- 
gations of a distant date which remained impressed on his 
memory, after a life spent in a constant interchange of 

15 friendship and kindness," he counted not as the least the 
lady's frankness in correcting his Scotticisms, and more 
especially his Scottish rhy7nes. 

"When I first saw Sir Walter," she writes to me, "he 
was about four or five-and-twenty, but looked much 

20 younger. He seemed bashful and awkward ; but there 
were from the first such gleams of superior sense and 
spirit in his conversation, that I was hardly surprised 
when, after our acquaintance had ripened a little, I felt 
myself to be talking with a man of genius. He was most 

25 modest about himself, and shewed his little pieces appar- 
ently without any consciousness that they could possess 
any claim on particular attention. Nothing so easy and 
good-humoured as the way in which he received any 
hints I might offer, when he seemed to be tampering with 

30 the King's Enghsh. I remember particularly^ how he 
laughed at himself, when I made him take notice that 
'the little two dogs,' in some of his lines, did not please 
an English ear accustomed to 'the two little dogs.'" 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 47 

In his German studies, Scott acquired, about this time, 
another assistant in Mr. Skene of Rubislaw — a gentle- 
man considerably his junior, who had just returned to 
Scotland from a residence of several years in Saxon3\ 
Their fondness for the same literature, with Scott's eager- 5 
ness to profit by his new acquaintance's superior attain- 
ment in it, opened an intercourse which general similarity 
of tastes, and I venture to add, in many of the most 
important features of character, soon ripened into the 
familiarity of a tender friendship — ''An intimacy," 10 
Mr. Skene says, in a paper before me, ''of which I shall 
ever think with so much pride — a friendship so pure and 
cordial as to have been able to withstand all the vicissitudes 
of nearly forty years, without ever having sustained even 
a casual chill from unkind thought or word." Mr. Skene 15 
adds — "During the whole progress of his varied life, to 
that eminent station which he could not but feel he at 
length held in the estimation, not of his countrj^men 
alone, but of the whole world, I never could perceive the 
slightest shade of variance from that simplicity of character 20 
with which he impressed me on the first hour of our meet- 
ing." 

Among the common tastes which served to knit these 
friends together, was their love of horsemanship, in which, 
as in all other manly exercises, Skene highly excelled ; 25 
and the fears of a French invasion becoming every day 
more serious, their thoughts were turned with correspond- 
ing zeal to the project of mounted volunteers. "The 
London Light-horse had set the example," says Mr. 
Skene; "but in truth it was to Scott's ardour that this 30 
force in the North owed its origin. Unable, by reason 
of his lameness, to serve amongst his friends on foot, 
he had nothing for it but to rouse the spirit of the moss- 



48 LIFE OF SIR M^ ALTER SCOTT 

trooper, with which he readily inspired all who possessed 
the means of substituting the sabre for the musket." On 
the 14th February 1797, these friends and many more met 
and drew up an offer to serve as a body of volunteer 
5 cavalry in Scotland ; which was accepted by Government. 
" The part of quartermaster," says Mr. Skene, ''was pur- 
posely selected for him, that he might be spared the rough 
usage of the ranks; but, notwithstanding his infirmity, 
he had a remarkably firm seat on horseback, and in all 

I o situations a fearless one: no fatigue ever seemed too 
much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sus- 
tain the enthusiasm of the whole corps, while his ready 
'mot a rire' kept up, in all, a degree of good-humour and 
relish for the service, without which, tne toil and privations 

IS of long daily drills would not easily have been submitted 
to by such a body of gentlemen. At every interval 
of exercise, the order, sit at ease, was the signal for the 
quartermaster to lead the squadron to merriment; every 
eye was intuitively turned on 'Earl Walter,' as he was 

2o familiarly called bj^ his associates of that date, and his 
ready joke seldom failed to raise the ready laugh. He 
took his full share in all the labours and duties of the corps, 
had the highest pride in its progress and proficiency, and 
was such a trooper himself, as only a very powerful frame 

25 of body and the warmest zeal in the cause could have 
enabled any one to be. But his habitual good-humour 
was the great charm, and at the daily mess (for we all 
dined together when in quarters) that reigned supreme." 
Earl Walter^s first charger, by the way, was a tall and 

30 powerful animal, named Lenore° These daily drills 
appear to have been persisted in during the spring and 
summer of 1797; the corps spending moreover some 
weeks in quarters at Musselburgh. The majority of the 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 49 

troop having professional duties to attend to, the ordinary 
hour for drill was five in the morning ; and when we reflect, 
that after some hours of hard work in this way, Scott 
had to produce himself regularly in the Parliament House 
with gown and wig, for the space of four or five hours at 5 
least, while his chamber practice, though still humble, 
was on the increase — and that he had found a plentiful 
source of new social engagements in his troop connexions — 
it certainly could have excited no surprise had his literary 
studies been found suffering total intermission during this 10 
bus}' period. That such was not the case, however, his 
correspondence and note-books afford ample evidence. 
His fee-hook shews that he made by his first year's practice 
L.24, 3s. ; by the second, L.57, 15s. ; by the third, L.84, 
4s. ; by the fourth, L.90 ; and in his fifth year at the Bar — 15 
that is, from November 1796 to July 1797— L. 144, 10s., 
of which L.50 were fees from his father's chamber. He had 
no turn, at this time of his life, for early rising ; so that the 
regular attendance at the morning drills was of itself a 
strong evidence of his military zeal ; but he must have, 20 
in spite of them, and of all other circumstances, persisted 
in what was the usual custom of all his earlier life, namely, 
the devotion of the best hours of the night to solitary 
study. In general, both as a young man, and in more 
advanced age, his constitution required a good allowance 25 
of sleep, and he, on principle, indulged in it, saying, "he 
was but half a man if he had not full seven hours of utter 
unconsciousness;" but his whole mind and temperament 
were, at this period, in a state of most fervent exaltation, 
and spirit triumphed over matter. 30 



CHAPTER III 

Tour to the English Lakes — Miss Carpenter — Marriage 
— Lasswade Cottage — Original Ballads — James Bal- 
lantyne — Sheriffship of Selkirk — Publication of the^ 
Minstrelsy of the Border — First Draft of The Lay 
of the Last Minstrel — 1797-1803. 

After the rising of the Court of Session in July 1797, 
Scott set out on a tour to the English lakes, accompanied 
by his brother John and Adam Fergusson. Their first 
stage was Halyards in Tweeddale, then inhabited by his 
5 friend's father, the philosopher and historian ; and they 
stayed there for a day or two, in the course of which he had 
his first and only interview with David Ritchie, the original 
of his Black Dwarf. Proceeding southwards, the tourists 
visited Carlisle, Penrith, — the vale of the Eamont, includ- 

lo ing Mayburgh and Brougham Castle, — LTlswater and 
Windermere; and at length fixed their head-quarters at 
the then peaceful and sequestered little watering place of 
Gilsland, making excursions from thence to the various 
scenes of romantic interest which are commemorated in 

IS The Bridal of Triermain, and otherwise leading very much 
the sort of life depicted among the loungers of St. Ronan's 
Well. 

Riding one day with Fergusson, they met, some miles 
from their quarters, a young lady taking the air on horse- 

2o back, whom neither of them had previously remarked, 
and whose appearance instantly struck both so much, 
that the}'' kept her in view until they had satisfied them- 

50 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 51 

selves that she also was one of the party at Gilsland. The 
same evening there was a ball, at which Captain Scott 
produced himself in his regimentals, and Fergusson also 
thought proper to be equipped in the uniform of the Edin- 
burgh Volunteers. There was no little rivalry among the 5 
young travellers as to who should first get presented to 
the unknown beauty of the morning's ride ; but though 
both the gentlemen in scarlet had the advantage of being 
dancing partners, their friend succeeded in handing the 
fair stranger to supper — and such was his first introduc- 10 
tion to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter. A lovelier vision, 
as all who remember her in the bloom of her daj^s have 
assured me, could hardly have been imagined; and from 
that hour the fate of the young poet was fixed. 

She was the daughter of Jean Charpentier, of Lyons, a 15 
devoted ro3''aUst, who held an office under Government, 
and Charlotte Volere, his wife. She and her only brother, 
Charles Charpentier, had been educated in the Protestant 
religion of their mother; and when their father died, 
which occurred in the beginning of the Revolution, Ma- 20 
dame Charpentier made her escape vAih. her children first 
to Paris, and then to England. 

Scott's father was now in a very feeble state of health, 
which accounts for his first announcement of this affair 
being made in a letter to his mother : ''My dear Mother, — 25 
I should verj^ ill deserve the care and affection with which 
you have ever regarded me, were I to neglect my duty so 
far as to omit consulting my father and you in the most 
important step which I can possibly take in fife, and upon 
the success of which my future happiness must depend. 30 
It is with pleasure I think that I can avail myself of your 
ad\'ice and instructions in an affair of so great importance 
as that which I have at present on my hands. You will 



52 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

probably guess from this preamble, that I am engaged in 
a matrimonial plan, which is really the case. You will 
not expect from me a description of her person — for 
which I refer you to my brother, as also for a fuller account 
5 of all the circumstances attending the business than can 
be comprised in the compass of a letter. Without flying 
into raptures, for I must assure you that my judgment as 
well as my affections are consulted upon this occasion — 
without flying into raptures, then, I may safely assure you, 

lo that her temper is sweet and cheerful, her understanding 
good, and, what I know will give you pleasure, her prin- 
ciples of religion very serious. I have been very explicit 
with her upon the nature of my expectations, and she 
thinks she can accommodate herself to the situation which 

15 I should wish her to hold in societj^ as my wife, which, 
you will easily comprehend, I mean should neither be 
extravagant nor degrading. Her fortune, though partly 
dependent upon her brother, who is high in office at 
Madras, is very considerable — at present L.500 a-year. 

20 This, however, we must, in some degree, regard as pre- 
carious — I mean to the full extent ; and indeed, when you 
know her, you will not be surprised that I regard this 
circumstance chiefly because it removes those prudential 
considerations which would otherwise render our union 

25 impossible for the present. Betwixt her income and my 
own professional exertions, I have little doubt we will be 
enabled to hold the rank in society which my family and 
situation entitle me to fill. Write to me very fully upon 
this important subject — send me your opinion, your 

30 advice, and, above all, your blessing." 

Scott was married at Carlisle during the Christmas 
recess, and carried his l^ride to a lodging in George 
Street, Edinburgh ; a house which he had taken, not being 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 53 

quite prepared for her reception. The first fortnight 
was, I beheve, sufficient to convince her husband's family 
that, however rashly he had formed the connexion, she 
had the sterling qualities of a wife. Notwithstanding some 
little leaning to the pomps and vanities of the world, she had 5 
made up her mind to find her happiness in better things; 
and so long as their circumstances continued narrow, no 
woman could have conformed herself to them with more 
of good feeling and good sense. 

In the summer of 1798 Scott hired a cottage at Lass- 10 
wade, on the Esk, about six miles from Edinburgh. It 
is a small house, but with one room of good dimensions, 
which Mrs. Scott's taste set off to advantage at very hum- 
ble cost — a paddock or two — and a garden (command- 
ing a most beautiful view) in which Scott delighted to 15 
train his flowers and creepers. Never, I have heard him 
say, was he prouder of his handiwork than when he had 
completed the fashioning of a rustic archwa}^ now over- 
grown w^th hoary ivy, by way of ornament to the entrance 
from the Edinburgh road. In this retreat they spent some 20 
happy summers, receiving the visits of their few chosen 
friends from the neighbouring city, and wandering at will 
amidst some of the most romantic scenery that Scotland 
can boast — Scott's dearest haunt in the days of his boy- 
ish ramblings. It was here, that when his warm heart 25 
was beating with young and happy love, and his whole 
mind and spirit were nerved by new motives for exertion — 
it was here, that in the ripened glow of manhood he seems 
to have first felt something of his real strength, and poured 
himself out in those splendid original ballads which were 30 
at once to fix his name. 

In March 1799, he carried his wife to London, this 
being the first time that he had seen the metropolis since 



54 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

the days of his infancy. His great anxiety was to examine _« 

the antiquities of the Tower and Westminster Abbey, ■] 

and to make some researches among the MSS. of the ■: 

British Museum. His return to Edinburgh was accel- 

5 erated by the tidings of his father's death. This worthy 
man had had a succession of paralytic attacks, under which, 
mind as well as body had by degrees been laid quite pros- 
trate. 

Mr. Thomas Scott continued to manage his father's 

10 business. He married early ; he was in his circle of society 
extremely popular; and his prospects seemed fair in all 
things. The property left by the old gentleman was less 
than had been expected, but sufficient to make ample 
provision for his widow, and a not inconsiderable addition 

IS to the resources of those among whom the remainder was 
divided. 

The summer after his father's death produced what 
Scott justly calls his ^' first serious attempts inverse"; 
and of these, the earliest appears to have been the Glen- 

2ofinlas. The next of these compositions was, I believe, 
the Eve of St. John, in which Scott re-peoples the tower of 
Smailholm, the awe-inspiring haunt of his infancy; and 
here he touches, for the first time, the one superstition 
which can still be appealed to with full and perfect effect ; 

25 the only one which lingers in minds long since weaned from 
all sympathy with the machinery of witches and goblins. 
And surely this mystery was never touched with more 
thrilling skill than in that noble ballad. It is the first 
of his original pieces, too, in which he uses the measure 

30 of his own favourite Minstrels; a measure which the 
monotony of mediocrity had long and successfully been 
labouring to degrade, but in itself adequate to the expres- 
sion of the highest thoughts, as well as the gentlest emo- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 55 

tions; and capable, in fit hands, of as rich a variety of 
music as any other of modern times. This was written 
at Mertoun-house in the autmnn of 1799. Some dilai> 
idations had taken place in the tower of Smailholm, and 
Harden, being informed of the fact, and entreated with 5 
needless earnestness by his kinsman to arrest the hand of 
the spoiler, requested pla}fully a ballad, of which Smail- 
holm should be the scene, as the price of his assent. 

Then came The Grey Brother, founded on another 
superstition, which seems to have been almost as ancient 10 
as the belief in ghosts ; namely, that the holiest service of 
the altar cannot go on in the presence of an unclean per- 
son — a heinous sinner unconf essed and unabsolved. 

Having again given a week to Liddesdale, in company 
with Air. Shortreed, he spent a few days at Rosebank, 15 
and was preparing to return to Edinburgh for the winter, 
when he received a visit which had consequences of im- 
portance. 

In the early days of Lancelot Wliale, he had had for a 
classfellow Mr. James BaUantyne, the eldest son of a 20 
decent shopkeeper in Kelso, and their acquaintance had 
never been altogether broken off, as Scott's visits to Rose- 
bank were frequent, and the other had resided for a time 
in Edinburgh, when pursuing his education "v\ith a view 
to the profession of a solicitor. Mr. BaUantyne had not 25 
been successful in his attempts to establish himself in that 
branch of the law, and was now the printer and editor of 
a weekly newspaper in his native town. He called at Rose- 
bank one morning, and requested his old acquaintance to 
supply a few paragraphs on some legal question of the day 30 
for his Kelso Mail. Scott complied ; and carried his 
article himself to the printing-office. At parting, Scott 
threw out a casual observation, that he wondered his old 



56 LIFE OF SIB WALTER SCOTT 

friend did not try to get some little booksellers' work, 
'Ho keep his types in play during the rest of the week." 
Ballantyne answered, that such an idea had not before 
occurred to him — that he had no acquaintance with the 
5 Edinburgh ''trade " ; but, if he had, his types were good, 
and he thought he could afford to work more cheaply than 
town-printers. Scott, "with his good humoured smile," 
said, — ''You had better try what you can do. You have 
been praising my httle ballads; suppose you print off a 

lo dozen copies or so of as many as will make a pamphlet, 
sufficient to let my Edinburgh acciuaintances judge of your 
skill for themselves." Ballantyne assented; and I beheve 
exactly twelve copies of William and Ellen, The Fire-King, 
The Chase, and a few more of those pieces, were thrown 

15 off accordingly. This first specimen of a press, afterwards 
so celebrated, pleased Scott ; and he said to Ballantyne — 
"I have been for years collecting old Border ballads, and 
I think I could, with httle trouble, put together such a 
selection from them as might make a neat little volume, 

20 to sell for four or five shillings. I will talk to some of the 
booksellers about it when I get to Edinburgh, and if the 
thing goes on, you shall be the printer." Ballantyne highly 
rehshed the proposal ; and the result of this little experi- 
ment changed whoUy the course of his worldly fortunes, 

25 as well as of his friend's. 

Shortly after the commencement of the Winter Session, 
the office of Sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire became vacant 
by the death of an early ally of Scott's, Andrew Plummer 
of Middlestead, a scholar and antiquary, who had entered 

30 with zeal into his ballad researches, and whose name occurs 
accordingly more than once in the notes to the Border 
Minstrelsy. Perhaps the community of their tastes may 
have had some part in suggesting to the Duke of Buccleuch, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 57 

that Scott might fitly succeed ]Mr. Plunimer in the magis- 
trature. Be that as it might, his Grace's influence was 
used with Mr. Henry Dundas (afterwards Viscount iVIel- 
ville) who in those days had the general control of the 
Crown patronage in Scotland, and was prepared to look 5 
favourably on Scott's pretensions to some office of this 
description. 

His appointment to the Sheriffship bears date 16th 
December 1799. It secured him an annual salary of 
L. 300 ; an addition to his resources which at once relieved 10 
his mind from whatever degree of anxiety he might have 
felt in considering the prospect of an increasing f amity, 
along mth the ever precarious chances of a profession, in 
the daily drudgery of which it is impossible to suppose that 
he ever could have found much pleasure. The duties of 15 
the office were far from heavy ; the territorj^, small, peace- 
ful, and pastoral, was in great part the property of the 
Duke of Buccleuch ; and he turned with redoubled zeal to 
his project of editing the ballads, man}^ of the best of 
which belonged to this very district of his favourite Border 20 
— those ''tales" w^hich, as the Dedication of the Minstrelsy 
expresses it, had ''in elder times celebrated the prowess 
and cheered the halls" of his noble patron's ancestors. 

During the years ISOO and 1801, the Minstrelsy formed 
its editor's chief occupation — a labour of love trul}", if ever 25 
such there was; but neither this nor his sheriffship inter- 
fered with his regular attendance at the Bar, the abandon- 
ment of which was all this wiiile as far as it ever had been 
from his imagination, or that of any of his friends. He 
continued to have his summer headquarters at Lasswade. 30 
His means of hospitaUty were now much enlarged, and the 
cottage on a Saturday and Sunda}^ at least, was seldom 
without visitors. 



58 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Volumes I. and II. of the Minstrelsy appeared in Janu- 
ary 1802, from the respectable house of Cadell and Davies 
in the Strand; and these maybe said to have first introduced 
Scott as an original writer to the English public. In his 
5 Remarks on the imitation of Popular Poetry, he says : — 
''When the book came out, the imprint, Kelso, was read 
with wonder by amateurs of typography, who had never 
heard of such a place, and were astonished at the example 
to handsome printing which so obscure a town had pro- 

loduced." The edition was exhausted in the course of the 
year, and the terms of publication having been that Scott 
should have half the clear profits, his share was exactly 
L.78, 10s. — a sum which certainly could not have repaid 
him for the actual expenditure incurred in the collection 

15 of his materials. 

The reception of the first volumes elated naturally their 
printer, who went up to London to cultivate acquaintance 
with publishers, and on his return writes thus to his em- 
plo5''er: — "I shall ever think the printing the Scottish 

20 Minstrelsy one of the most fortunate circumstances of 
my hfe. I have gained, not lost by it, in a pecuniary 
light ; and the prospects it has been the means of opening 
to me, may advantageously influence mj^ future destiny. 
I can never be sufficiently grateful for the interest j^ou un- 

25 ceasingly take in my welfare. One thing is clear — that 
Kelso cannot be my abiding place for aye." The great 
bookseller, Longman, repaired to Scotland soon after this, 
and made an offer for the copyright of the Minstrelsy, 
the third volume included. This was accepted. 

30 Shortly after this, in a letter to ElUs,° Scott mentions, 
among other things to be included in the tliird volume of 
the Minstrelsy, "a long poem" from his own pen — "sl 
kind of romance of Border chivahy, in a hght-horseman 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 59 

sort of stanza." This refers to the first draft of The 
Lay of the Last Minstrel ; and the author's description of 
it as being "in a hght-horseman sort of stanza," was prob- 
ably suggested by the circumstances under which the 
greater part of that draft had l^een accompUshed. He s 
has told us, in his Introduction of 1830, that the poem 
originated in a request of the young and lovely Countess of 
Dalkeith, that he would write a ballad on the legend of 
Gilpin Horner : that he began it at Lass wade, and read 
the opening stanzas, as soon as they were written, to lo 
Erskine and Cranstoun : that their reception of these was 
apparently so cold as to disgust him wdth what he had 
done; but that finding, a few days afterwards, that the 
verses had nevertheless excited their curiosity, and haunted 
their memory, he was encouraged to resume the under- 15 
taking. The scene and date of this resumption I owe to 
the recollection of the then Cornet of the Light-horse. 
While the troop were on permanent duty at Mussel- 
burgh, in the autumnal recess of 1802, the Quarter-Master, 
during a charge on PortobeUo sands, received a kick of a ao 
horse, which confined him for three days to his lodgings. 
Mr. Skene found him busy with his pen ; and he produced 
before these three days expired the first canto of the Lay, 
very nearly, if his friend's memory may be trusted, in the 
state in which it was ultimately published. That the 25 
whole poem was sketched and filled in with extrac rdinary 
rapidity, there can be no difficulty in beheving. He him- 
self says (in the Introduction of 1830), that after he had 
once got fairly into the vein, it proceeded at the rate of 
about a canto in a week. The Lay, however, sc^ n out- 30 
grew the dimensions which he had originally conten plated ; 
the design of including it in the third volume of tie Min- 
strelsy was of course abandoned; and it did not appear 



60 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

until nearly three years after that fortunate mishap on the 
beach of Portobello. 

He thus writes to Ballantyne, on the 21st April 1803 : 
— ''I have to thank you for the accuracy with which the 

5 Minstrelsy is thrown off. Longman and Rees are de- 
lighted with the printing. I mean this note to be added, 
by way of advertisement : — 'In the press, and will speedily 
be published, the Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Walter 
Scott, Esq., Editor of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Bor- 

loder. Also Sir Tristrem, a Metrical Romance, by 
Thomas of Ercildoune, called the Rhymer, edited from an 
ancient MS., with an Introduction and Notes, by Walter 
Scott, Esq.' Will you cause such a thing to be appended 
in your own way and fashion ?" 

1.5 The letter is addressed to "Mr. James Ballantyne, 
printer, Abbey-hill, Edinburgh"; which shews, that be- 
fore the third volume of the Minstrelsy passed through the 
press, the migration recommended two years earlier had at 
length taken place. ''It was about the end of 1802," 

2osays Ballantyne, "that I closed with a plan so congenial to 
my wishes. I removed, bag and baggage, to Edinburgh, 
finding accommodation for two presses, and a proof one, 
in the precincts of Holyrood-house, then deriving new 
lustre and interest from the recent arrival of the royal 

25 exiles of France. In these obscure premises some of 
the most beautiful productions of what we called The 
Border Press were printed." The Memorandum states, 
that Scott having renewed his hint as to pecuniary as- 
sistance, as soon as the ])rinter found his finances straitened 

30 "a hberal loan was advanced accordingly." 

Scott speaks, in an Essay of his closing years, as if the 
first reception of the Minstrelsy on the south of the Tweed 
had been cold. "The curiosity of the English," he says, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 61 

"was not much awakened b}' poems in the rude garb of 
anticiuity, accompanied with notes referring to the obscure 
f(>uds of barbarous clans, of whose very names civihzed 
history was ignorant." In writing those beautiful Intro- 
ductions of 1830, however, he seems to have trusted s 
entirely to his recollection of days long gone by, and he has 
accordingly^ let fall many statements which we must take 
with some allowance. His impressions as to the reception 
of the Minstrelsy were different, when writing to his 
brother-in-law, Charles Carpenter, on the 3d March 1803, lo 
he said — "I have contrived to turn a very slender por- 
tion of literary talents to some account, by a publication 
of the poetical antiquities of the Border, where the old 
people had preserved many ballads descriptive of the 
manners of the country during the wars ^vith England. 15 
This trifling collection was so well received by a discerning 
public, that, after receiving about L.lOO profit for the first 
echtion, which my vanity cannot omit informing you went 
off in six months, I have sold the copyright for L. 500 more." 
Had the sale of the original edition been chiefly Scotch, 1 20 
doubt whether Messrs. Longman would have so readily 
offered L. 500, in those days of the trade a large sum, for 
the second. Scott had become habituated, long before 
1830, to a scale of bookseUing transactions, measured by 
which the largest editions and copj^iionies of his own 25 
early days appeared insignificant ; but the evidence seems 
complete that he was weU contented at the time. 

One of the critics of that day said that the book con- 
tained "the elements of a hundred historical romances"; 
— and this critic was a prophetic one. No person who 30 
has not gone through its volumes for the express purpose 
of comparing their contents with his great original works, 
can have formed a conception of the endless variety of 



62 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

incidents and images now expanded and emblazoned by 
his mature art. The taste and fancy of Scott appear to 
have been formed as early as his moral character ; and he 
had, before he passed the threshold of authorship, as- 
5 sembled about him, in the uncalculating delight of native 
enthusiasm, almost all the materials on which his genius 
was destined to be employed for the gratification and 
instruction of the world. 



CHAPTER IV 

Wordsworth — Hogg — Sir Tristrem — Removal to Ash- 
estiel — Publication of The Lay of the Last Minstrel — 
Partnership with James Ballantyne — Opening Chap- 
ters of Waverley — Visit to London — Appointment as 
Clerk of Session — 1804-1806. 

During the summer of 1803, his chief literary work 
was on the Sir Tristrem, but the Lay of the Last Minstrel 
made progre^ss at intervals — mostlj^, it would seem, when 
he was in quarters with his troop of horse, and neces- 
sarily without his books of reference. It was in that 5 
autumn that Scott first saw Wordsw^orth.° Their com- 
mon acquaintance, Stoddart,° had so often talked of them 
to each other, that they met as if they had not been 
strangers ; and they parted friends. 

Mr. and Miss Wordsw^orth had just completed their 10 
tour in the Highlands, of which so many incidents have 
since been immortaUzed, both in the poet's verse and in 
the hardly less poetical prose of his sister's Diary. On the 
morning of the 17th of September, ha^dng left their car- 
riage at Roslin, they walked down the valley to Lasswade 15 
and arrived there before Mr. and Mrs. Scott had risen, 
''We were received," Mr. Wordsworth has told me, "with 
that frank cordiality w^hich, under whatever circumstances 
I afterwards met him, always marked his manners ; and, 
indeed, I found him then in every respect — except, per- 20 
haps, that his animal spirits were somewhat higher — 
precisely the same man that you knew him in later life. 

63 



64 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

''Sir Tristrem" was at length published on the 2d of 
May 1804, by Constable, who, however, expected so 
little popularity for the work, that the edition consisted 
only of 150 copies. These were sold at a high price (two 

5 guineas), otherwise ihey would not have been enough to 
cover the expenses of paper and printing. Mr. Ellis and 
other friends were much dissatisfied with these arrange- 
ments ; but I doubt not that Constable was a better judge 
than any of them. 

lo In the course of the preceding sunuiier, the Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of Selkirkshire complained of Scott's military zeal 
as interfering sometimes with the discharge of his shrieval 
functions, and took occasion to remind him, that the law, 
requiring every Sheriff to reside at least four months in the 

15 year within his own jurisdiction, had not hitherto been com- 
plied with. On the 4th May, two days after the Tris- 
trem had been published, Scott says to EUis, who was 
meditating a northern tour — "I have been engaged in 
travelling backwards and forwards to Selkirkshii-e upon 

2o little pieces of business, just important enough to prevent 
my doing anything to purpose. One great matter, how^- 
ever, I have achieved, which is, procuring myself a place 
of residence, which will save me these teasing migrations 
in future, so that though I part with my sweet httle cot- 

25 tage on the banks of the Esk, you will find me this summer 
in the very centre of the ancient Reged° in a decent farm- 
house overhanging the Tweed and situated in a wild 
pastoral country." 

On the 10th of June 1804, died, at his seat of Rosebank, 

30 Captain Robert Scott, the affectionate uncle whose name 
has often occurred in this narrative. "He was," sa3''S his 
nephew to Ellis, on the 18th, "a man of universal benevo- 
lence and great kindness towards his friends, and to me 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT (JO 

individualh'. He has distinguished me bj^ leaving me 
a l)eautiful Uttle villa on the banks of the Tweed, with 
every possible convenience annexed to it, and about thirty 
acres of the finest land in Scotland. Notwithstanding;, 
however, the temptation that this bequest offers, I con- 5 
tinue to pursue my Reged plan, and expect to be settled at 
Ashestiel in the course of a month. Rosebank is situated 
so near the village of Kelso, as hardlj^ to be sufficiently a 
country residence ; besides, it is hemmed in by hedges and 
ditches, not to mention Dukes and I.adj^ Dowagers, 10 
which are bad things for little people. It is expected to 
sell to great advantage. I shall buy a mountain farm with 
the purchase-money, and be quite the Laird of the Cairn 
and the Scaur." 

Scott sold Rosebank in the course of the 3'ear for L.oOOO. 15 
This bequest made an important change in his pecuniary 
position, and influenced accordinglj^ the arrangements of 
his future life. Independentl}^ of practice at the Bar, and 
of literary profits, he was now, with his little patrimony, 
his Sheriffship, and about L.200 per annum arising from 20 
the stock ultimately settled on his wife, in possession of a 
fixed revenue of nearlj^ L.IOOO a-year. 

When he first examined Ashestiel, with a view to beings 
his cousin's tenant, he thought of taking home James 
Hogg° to superintend the sheep-farm, and keep watch oxer 25 
the house also during the winter. I am not able to tell 
exactly in what manner this proposal fell to the ground ; 
but in truth the Sheriff had hardh^ been a week in posses- 
sion of his new domains, before he made acquaintance 
with a character much better suited to his purpose than 30 
James Hogg ever could have been. I mean honest Thomas 
Purdie, his faithful servant — his affectionately^ devoted 
humble friend from this time until death parted them. 



66 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Tom was first brought before him, in his capacity of Sheriff, 
on a charge of poaching, when the poor fellow gave such a 
touching account of his circumstances, — a wife, and I 
know not how many children, depending on his exertions 
5 — work scarce and grouse abundant, — and all this with 
a mixture of odd sly humour, — that the Sheriff's heart 
was moved. Tom escaped the penalty of the law — was 
taken into employment as shepherd, and shewed such zeal, 
activity, and shrewdness in that capacity, that Scott 

10 never had any occasion to repent of the step he soon after- 
awards took, in promoting him to the position which had 
ibeen originally offered to James Hogg. 

It was also about the same time that he took into his 
service as coachman Peter Mathieson, brother-in-law to 

IS Thomas Purdie, another faithful servant, who never after- 
wards left him, and still (1848) survives his kind master. 
Scott's awkward management of the little phaeton had ex- 
posed his wife to more than one perilous overturn, before 
he agreed to set up a close carriage, and call in the assist- 

2o ance of this steady charioteer. 

To return to the Lay of the Last Minstrel: Scott 
wrote ElUs, August 21 — ''I wish very much I could have 
sent you the Lay while in MS., to have had the advantage 
of your opinion and corrections. But Ballantyne galled 

25 my kibes° so severely during an unusual fit of activity, 
that I gave him the whole story in a sort of pet both with 
him and with it." 

There is a circumstance which must already have struck 
such of my readers as knew the author in his latter days, 

30 namely, the readiness with which he seems to have com- 
municated this poem, in its progress, not only to his own 
famihar friends, but to new and casual acquaintances. We 
shall find him following the same course with his Marmion 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 67 

— but not, I think, with any of his subsequent works. 
His determination to consult the movements of his own 
mind alone in the conduct of his pieces, was probably taken 
before he began the Lay; and he soon resolved to trust 
for the detection of minor inaccuracies to two persons only 5 

— James Ballantyne and William Erskine. The printer 
was himself a man of considerable literary talents : his own 
style had the incurable faults of pomposity and affectation ; 
but his eye for more venial errors in the writings of others 
was quick, and, though his personal address was apt to give 10 
a stranger the impression of insincerity, he was in reality 
an honest man, and convej^ed his mind on such matters 
with equal candour and delicacy during the whole of Scott's 
briUiant career. In the vast majority of instances he 
found his friend acquiesce at once in the propriety of his 15 
suggestions ; nay, there certainly were cases, though rare, 
in which his advice to alter things of much more conse- 
quence than a word or a rh3^iie, was frankly tendered, and 
on dehberation adopted b}^ Scott. Mr. Erskine was the 
referee whenever the poet hesitated about taking the hints 20 
of the zealous t j'pographer ; and his refined taste and 
gentle manners rendered his critical alliance highly valu- 
able. With two such faithful friends within his reach, 
the author of the Lay might safely dispense with sending 
his ^LS. to be revised even by George ElUs. 25 

In the first week of January 1805, "The Lay" was pub- 
lished; and its success at once decided that hterature 
should form the main business of Scott's Hfe. I shall not 
mock the reader with many words as to the merits of a 
poem which has now kept its place for nearly half a cen- 30 
tury ; but one or two additional remarks on the history of 
the composition may be pardoned. 

It is curious to trace the small beginnings and gradual 



68 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

development of his design. The lovely Countess of Dal- 
keith hears a wild rude legend of Border diablerie, and 
sportively asks him to make it the subject of a ballad. 
A single scene of feudal festivity in the hall of Branksome, 
5 disturbed by some pranks of a nondescript gobUn, was pro- 
bably all that he contemplated ; but his accidental con- 
finement in the midst of a volunteer camp gave him leisure 
to meditate his theme to the sound of the bugle ; — and 
suddenly there flashes on him the idea of extending his 

lo simple outline, so as to embrace a vivid panorama of that 
old Border life of war and tumult, and all earnest passions, 
with which his researches on the "Minstrelsy" had by de- 
grees fed his imagination, until even the minutest feature 
had been taken home and realized with unconscious in- 

15 tenseness of sympathy ; so that he had won for himself in 
the past, another world, hardly less complete or familiar 
than the present. Erskine or Cranstoun suggests that he 
would do well to divide the poem into cantos, and prefix 
to each of them a motto explanatorj^ of the action, after 

20 the fashion of Spenser in the Faery Queen. He pauses for 
a moment — and the happiest conception of the framework 
of a picturesque narrative that ever occurred to any poet — 
one that Homer might have envied — the creation of the 
ancient harper, starts to life. By such steps did the Lay 

25 of the Last Minstrel grow out of the Minstrelsy of the 
Scottish Border. 

"It would be great affectation," says the Introduction 
of 1830, "not to own that the author expected some suc- 
cess from the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The attempt 

30 to return to a more simple and natural poetry was likely to 
be welcomed, at a time when the public had become tired 
of heroic hexameters, with all the buckram and binding 
that belong to them in modern days. But whatever might 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 69 

have been bis expectations, whether moderate or unrea- 
sonable, the result left them far behind ; for among those 
who smiled on the adventurous minstrel were numbered 
the great names of William Pitt and Charles Fox. Neither 
was the extent of the sale inferior to the character of the 5 
judges who received the poem with approbation. Up- 
wards of 30,000 copies were disposed of b}' the trade ; and 
the author had to perform a task difficult to human vanity, 
when called upon to make the necessary deductions from 
his own merits, in a calm attempt to account for its popu- 10 
larity." 

The publishers of the first edition were Longman and 
Co. of London, and Archibald Constable and Co. of Edin- 
burgh ; wliich last house, however, had but a small share 
in the adventure. The profits were to be di^'ided equally 15 
between the author and his publishers ; and Scott's moiety 
was £169, 6s. Messrs. Longman, when a second edition 
was called for, offered £500 for the copyright; this was 
accepted ; but they afterwards, as the Introduction says, 
''added £100 in their own unsohcited kindness. It was 20 
handsomely given, to supply the loss of a fine horse which 
broke down suddenly' while the author was riding with one 
of the worthy publishers." The author's whole share, 
then, in the profits of the Lay, came to £769, 6s. 

Mr. Ballantjme, in his Memorandum, says, that very 25 
shortly after the publication of the Lay, he found himself 
obliged to apply to Mr. Scott for an advance of money ; his 
own capital being inadequate for the business which had 
been accumulated on his press, in consequence of the 
reputation it had acquired for beauty and correctness of 30 
execution. Already, as we have seen, the printer had 
received "a hberal loan;" — "and now," saj^s he, ''being 
compelled, maugre all dehcacy, to renew my application, 



70 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

he candidly answered that he was not quite sure that it 
would be prudent for him to comply, but in order to evince 
his entire confidence in me, he was willing to make a suit- 
able advance to be admitted as a third-sharer of my 

5 business." No trace has been discovered of any exam- 
ination into the state of the business, on the part of Scott, 
at this time. However, he now embarked in Ballantyne's 
concern almost the whole of the capital w^hich he had a few 
months before designed to invest in the purchase of 

lo Broadmeadows. Dis aliter visum ° 

We have seen that, before he formed his contract with 
Ballantyne, he was in possession of such a fixed income as 
might have satisfied all his desires, had he not found his 
family increasing rapidly about him. Even as that was, 

15 with nearly if not quite £1000 per annum, he might per- 
haps have retired not only from the Bar, but from Edin- 
burgh, and settled entirely at Ashestiel or Broadmeadows, 
without encountering what any man of his station and 
habits ought to have considered as an imprudent risk. He 

20 had, however, no wish to cut himself off from the busy and 
intelligent society to which he had been hitherto accus- 
tomed ; and resolved not to leave the Bar until he should 
have at least used his best efforts for obtaining, in addition 
to his Shrievalty, one of those Clerkships of the Supreme 

25 Court which are usually considered as honourable retire- 
ments for advocates who, at a certain standing, give up all 
hopes of reaching the Bench. "I determined," he says, 
"that literature should be my staff but not my crutch, 
and that the profits of my literary labour, however con- 

3ovenient otherwise, should not, if I could help it, become 
necessary to my ordinary expenses. Upon such a post 
an author might hope to retreat, without any perceptible 
alteration of circumstances, whenever the time should 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 71 

arri\-e that the pubhc grew weary of his endeavours to 
please, or he himself should tire of the pen. I possessed 
so man}' friends capable of assisting me in this object of 
am}:)ition, that I could hardl}^ overrate my own prospects 
of obtaining the preferment to which I limited my ^vishes ; 5 
and, in fact, I obtained, in no long period, the reversion 
of a situation which completely met them." 

The forming of this commercial tie was one of the most 
important steps in Scott's life. He continued bound bj' 
it during twenty years, and its influence on his literary 10 
exertions and his worldly fortunes was productive of much 
good and not a httle evil. Its effects were in truth so 
mixed and balanced during the ^dcissitudes of a long and 
vigorous career, that I at this moment doubt whether it 
ought, on the whole, to be considered with more of satis- 15 
faction or of regret. 

With what zeal he proceeded in advancing the \dews 
of the new copartnership, his correspondence bears ample 
evidence. The brilliant and captivating genius, now ac- 
knowledged universalh^, was soon discovered bj^ the lead- 20 
ing booksellers of the time to be united with such abun- 
dance of matured information in manj^ departments, and, 
above all, with such indefatigable habits, as to mark him 
out for the most valuable workman they could engage for 
the furtherance of their schemes. He had, long before 25 
this, cast a shrewd and penetrating eye over the field of 
literary enterprise, and developed in his own mind the 
outlines of many extensive plans, which wanted nothing 
but the command of a sufficient body of able subalterns to 
be carried into execution with splendid success. Such of 30 
these as he grappled with in his own person were, with 
rare exceptions, carried to a triumphant conclusion ; but 
the alliance with Ballantyne soon infected him with the 



72 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

proverbial rashness of mere mercantile adventure — while, 
at the same time, his generous feelings for other men of 
letters, and his characteristic propensity to overrate their 
talents, combined to hurry him and his friends into a 
5 multitude of arrangements, the results of which were often 
extremely embarrassing, and ultimately, in the aggregate, 
all but disastrous. It is an old saying, that wherever there 
is a secret there must be something wrong ; and dearly did 
he pay the penalty for the mystery in which he had chosen 

lo to involve this transaction. It was his rule, from the be- 
ginning, that whatever he wrote or edited must be printed 
at that press ; and had he catered for it only as author and 
sole editor, all had been well ; but had the booksellers known 
his direct pecuniary interest in keeping up and extend- 

15 ing the occupation of those types, they would have taken 
into account his lively imagination and sanguine tem- 
perament, as well as his taste and judgment, and con- 
sidered, far more deliberately than they too often did, his 
multifarious recommendations of new literary schemes, 

20 coupled though these were with some dim miderstanding 
that, if the Ballantyne press were employed, his own liter- 
ary skill would be at his friend's disposal for the general 
superintendence of the undertaking. On the other hand, 
Scott's suggestions were, in many cases, perhaps in the 

25 majority of them, conveyed through Ballantyne, whose 
habitual deference to his opinion induced him to advocate 
them with enthusiastic zeal ; and the printer, who had thus 
pledged his personal authority for the merits of the pro- 
posed scheme, must have felt himself committed to the 

30 bookseller, and could hardly refuse with decency to take a 
certain share of the pecuniary risk, by allowing the time 
and method of his own payment to be regulated according 
to the employer's convenience. Hence, by degrees, was 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 73 

woven a web of entanglement from which neither Ballan- 
tyne nor his adviser had an}^ means of escape, except only 
in that indomitable spirit, the mainspring of personal in- 
dustry altogether unparalleled, to which, thus set in mo- 
tion, the world owes its most gigantic monument of lit- 5 
erary genius. 

The General Preface to his Novels informs us, that 
''about 1805" he wrote the opening chapters of VVaver- 
ley; and the second title, ^Tis Sixty Years Since, 
selected, as he says, "that the actual date of publication 10 
might correspond with the period in which the scene was 
laid," leaves no doubt that he had begun the work so 
earh" in 1805 as to contemplate publishing it before Christ- 
mas. He adds, in the same page, that he was induced, by 
the favourable reception of the Lady of the Lake, to think 15 
of giving some of his recollections of Highland Scenery 
and customs in prose ; but this is only one instance of the 
inaccuracy as to matters of date which pervades all those 
delightful Prefaces. The Lady of the Lake was not pub- 
lished until five years after the first chapters of Waverley 20 
were written; its success, therefore, could have had no 
share in suggesting the original design of a Highland novel, 
though no doubt it principally influenced him to take up 
that design after it had been long suspended, and almost 
forgotten. 25 

"Having proceeded," he says, "as far as I think the 
seventh chapter, I shewed my work to a critical friend, 
whose opinion was unfavourable ; and having then some 
poetical reputation, I was unwilling to risk the loss of it by 
attempting a new style of composition. I, therefore, then 30 
threw aside the work I had commenced, without either 
reluctance or remonstrance. I ought to add, that though 
m}^ ingenuous friend's sentence was afterwards reversed, on 



74 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

an appeal to the public, it cannot be considered as any 
imputation on his good taste ; for the specimen subjected 
to his criticism did not extend beyond the departure of the 
hero for Scotland, and consequently had not entered upon 
5 the part of the story which was finally found most inter- 
esting." It is, I think, evident from a letter of 1810, that 
the first critic of the opening chapters of Waverley was 
William Erskine. 

Meanwhile, Ashestiel, in place of being less resorted to 

loby literary strangers than Lasswade cottage had been, 
shared abundantly in the fresh attractions of the Lay, and 
"booksellers in the plural number" were preceded and 
followed by an endless variety of tourists, whose main 
temptation from the south had been the hope of seeing 

15 the Borders in company with their Minstrel. One of this 
year's guests was Mr. Southey° — their first meeting, the 
commencement of much kind intercourse. 

Mr. Skene soon discovered a change which had recently 
been made in his friend's distribution of his time. Pre- 

20 viously it had been his custom, whenever professional busi- 
ness or social engagements occupied the middle part of 
his day, to seize some hours for study after he was sup- 
posed to have retired to bed. His physician suggested 
that this was very likely to aggravate his nervous head- 

25 aches, the only malady he was subject to in the prime of 
his manhood; and, contemplating with steady eye a 
course not only of unremitting but of increasing industry, 
he resolved to reverse his plan. In short he had now 
adopted the habits in which, with slender variation, he 

30 ever after persevered when in the country. He rose by 
five o'clock, lit his fire when the season required one, and 
shaved and dressed with great deliberation — for he was 
a very martinet as to all but the mere coxcombries of the 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 75 

toilet, not abhorring effeminate dandyism itself so cordially 
as the slightest approach to personal slovenliness, or even 
those '' bed-gown and slipper tricks," as he called them, in 
which literary men are so apt to indulge. Clad in his 
shooting-jacket, or whatever dress he meant to use tills 
dinner time, he was seated at his desk by six o'clock, all 
his papers arranged before him in the most accurate order, 
and his books of reference marshalled around him on the 
flooi', while at least one favourite dog lay watching his eye, 
just l^eyond the hne of circumvallation. Thus, by the lo 
time the family assembled for breakfast between nine and 
ten, he had done enough (in his own language) ^'to break 
the neck of the day's work.'' After breakfast, a couple of 
hours more were given to his solitary tasks, and by noon 
he was, as he used to say, *'his own man." When the 15 
weather was bad, he would labour incessantly all the 
morning ; but the general rule was to be out and on horse- 
back by one o'clock at the latest ; while, if any more dis- 
tant excursion had been proposed over night, he was ready 
to start on it bj^ ten ; his occasional rainy days of unin- 20 
termitted study forming, as he said, a fund in his favour, 
out of which he was entitled to draw for accommodation 
whenever the sun shone with special brightness. 

It was another rule, that every letter he received should 
be answered that same day. Nothing else could have en- 25 
abled him to keep abreast with the flood of communica- 
tions that in the sequel put his good nature to the severest 
test — but already the demands on him in this way also 
were numerous ; and he included attention to them among 
the necessary business which must be dispatched before 30 
he had a right to close his writing-box, or as he phrased it, 
''to say, out damned spot° and be a gentleman." In 
turning over his enormous mass of correspondence, I have 



76 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

almost invariably found some indication that, when a 
letter had remained more than a day or two unanswered, 
it was because he found occasion for inquiry. 

I ought not to omit, that in those daj^s Scott was far too 

5 zealous a dragoon not to take a principal share in the 
stable duty. Before beginning his desk-work in the morn- 
ing, he uniformly visited his favourite steed, and neither 
Captain nor Lieutenant nor Brown Adam (so called after 
one of the heroes of the Minstrelsy) , hked to be fed except 

loby him. The latter charger was indeed altogether in- 
tractable in other hands, though in his the most submissive 
of faithful allies. The moment he was bridled and sad- 
dled, it was the custom to open the stable door as a signal 
that his master expected him, when he immediately trotted 

IS to the side of the leaping-on-stone, of which Scott from his 
lameness found it convenient to make use, and stood there, 
silent and motionless as a rock, until he was fairly in his 
seat, after which he displayed his joy by neighing tri- 
umphantly through a brilliant succession of curvettings. 

20 Brown Adam never suffered himself to be backed but by 
his master. He broke, I beheve, one groom's arm and an- 
other's leg in the rash attempt to tamper with his dignity. 
Camp was at this time the constant parlour dog. He 
was very handsome, very intelligent, and naturally very 

25 fierce, but gentle as a lamb among the children. As for 
a brace of lighter pets, styled Douglas and Percy, he kept 
one window of his study open, whatever might be the state 
of the weather, that they might leap out and in as the fancy 
moved them. He always talked to Camp as if he under- 

30 stood what was said — and the animal certainly did un- 
derstand not a little of it ; in particular, it seemed as if he 
perfectly comprehended on all occasions that his master 
considered him as a sensible and steady friend — the 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 77 

greyhounds as volatile young creatures whose freaks 
must be borne with. 

"Every day," says Mr. Skene, "we had some hours of 
coursing with the greyhounds, or riding at random over 
the hills, or of spearing salmon in the Tweed by sunhght : 5 
which last sport, moreover, we often renewed at night by 
the help of torches. This amusement of burning the ivater, 
as it is called, was not without some hazard ; for the large 
salmon generally lie in the pools, the depths of which it is 
not easy to estimate with precision by torchlight, — so that 10 
not unfrequently, when the sportsman makes a determined 
thrust at a fish apparently within reach, his eye has grossly 
deceived him, and instead of the point of the weapon en- 
countering the prcA', he finds himself launched with cor- 
responding vehemence heels over head into the pool, both 15 
spear and salmon gone, the torch thrown out by the con- 
cussion of the boat, and quenched in the stream, while the 
boat itself has of course receded to some distance. I re- 
member the first time I accompanied our friend, he went 
right over the gunwale in this manner, and had I not 20 
accidentally been at his side, and made a successful grasp 
at the skirt of his jacket as he plunged overboard, he must 
at least have had an awkward dive for it. Such are the 
contingencies of burning the water. The pleasures consist in 
l)cing penetrated with cold and wet, having your shins 25 
broken against the stones in the dark, and perhaps master- 
ing one fish out of every twenty j^ou take aim at." 

About this time Mr. and Airs. Scott made a short excur- 
sion to the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and 
visited some cf their finest scenery, in company with Mr. 30 
Wordsworth. I have found no written narrative of this 
little tour, but I have often heard Scott speak with en- 
thusiastic delight cf the reception he met with in the 



78 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

humble cottage which his brother poet then inhabited on 
the banks of Grasmere ; and at least one of the days they 
spent together was destined to furnish a theme for the verse 
of each, namely, that which they gave to the ascent of 
sHelvellyn. This day they were accompanied by an 
illustrious philosopher, who was also a true poet — and 
might have been one of the greatest of poets had he chosen ; 
and I have heard Mr. Wordsworth say, that it would be 
difficult to express the feelings with which he, who so often 

lohad climbed Helvellyn alone, found himself standing on 
its summit with two such men as Scott and Davy.° 

Meantime, the affair of the Clerkship, opened nine or 
ten months before, had not been neglected by the friends 
on whose counsel and assistance Scott had relied. George 

15 Home of Wedderburn, an old friend of his family, had now 
held a Clerkship for upwards of thirty years. In those 
days there was no system of retiring pensions for the worn- 
out functionary of this class, and the usual method was, 
either that he should resign in favour of a successor who 

20 advanced a sum of money according to the circumstances 
of his age and health, or for a coadjutor to be associated 
with him in his patent, who undertook the duty on condi- 
tion of a division of salary. Scott offered to relieve Mr. 
Home of all the labours of his office, and to allow him, 

25 nevertheless, to retain its emoluments entire ; and the 
aged clerk of course joined his exertions to procure a con- 
joint-patent on these very advantageous terms. 

The Court of Session sat, in his time, from the 12th of 
May to the 12th of July, and again from the 12th of No- 

30 vember, with a short interval at Christmas, to the 12th of 
March. The Judges of the Inner Court took their places 
on the Bench, every morning not later than ten o'clock, 
and remained according to the amount of business ready 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 79 

for despatch, but seldom for less than four or more than six 
hours daily; during which space the Principal Clerks 
continued seated at a table below the Bench, to watch the 
progress of the suits, and record the decisions — the cases 
of all classes being equally apportioned among their num- 5 
ber. The Court of Session, however, does not sit on Mon- 
day, that day being reserved for the criminal business of the 
High Court of Justiciary, and there is also another blank 
day every other week, — the Teind ° Wednesday, as it 
is called, v;hen the Judges are assembled for the hearing 10 
of tithe questions, which belong to a separate jurisdiction, 
of comparatively modern creation, and having its own 
separate estabhshment of officers. On the whole, then, 
Scott's attendance in Court may be taken to have 
amounted, on the average, to from four to six hours daily 15 
during rather less than six months out of the twelve. 

Not a little of the Clerk's business in Court is merely 
formal, and indeed mechanical; but there are few days 
in which he is not called upon for the exertion of his higher 
faculties, in reducing the decisions of the Bench, orall}" 20 
pronounced, to technical shape; which, in a new, com- 
plex, or difficult case, cannot be satisfactorily done without 
close attention to all the previous proceedings and written 
documents, an accurate understanding of the principles 
or precedents on which it has been determined, and a 25 
thorough command of the whole vocabulary of legal forms. 
Dull or indolent men, promoted through the mere wanton- 
ness of political patronage, might, no doubt, contrive to 
devolve the harder part of their duty upon humbler as- 
sistants ; but in general, the office had been held by gentle- 30 
men of high character and attainments ; and more than 
one among Scott's own colleagues enjoyed the reputation 
of legal science that would have done honour to the Bench. 



80 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Such men, of course, prided themselves on doing well 
whatever it was their proper function to do ; and it was by 
their example, not that of the drones who condescended to 
lean upon unseen and irresponsible inferiors, that Scott 

5 uniformly modelled his own conduct as a Clerk of Session. 
To do this, required, of necessity, constant study of law- 
papers and authorities at home. There was also a great 
deal of really base drudgery, such as the authenticating of 
registered deeds by signature, which he had to go through 

loout of Court; he had, too, a Shrievalty, though not a 
heavy one, all the while upon his hands ; — and, on the 
whole, it forms one of the most remarkable features in his 
history, that, throughout the most active period of his 
literary career, he must have devoted a large proportion 

IS of his hours, during haK at least of every year, to the 
conscientious discharge of professional duties. 

Henceforth, then, when in Edinburgh, his literary work 
was performed chiefly before breakfast; with the assist- 
ance of such evening hours as he could contrive to rescue 

20 from the consideration of Court papers, and from those 
social engagements in which, year after year, as his celeb- 
rity advanced, he was of necessity more and more largely 
involved ; and of those entire days during which the Court 
of Session did not sit — days which, by most of those 

25 holding the same official station, were given to relaxation 
and amusement. So long as he continued quarter-master 
of the Volunteer Cavalry, of course he had, even while in 
Edinburgh, some occasional horse exercise; but, in gen- 
eral, his town life henceforth was in that respect as inac- 

30 tive as his country life ever was the reverse. He scorned for 
a long while to attach any consequence to this complete al- 
ternation of habits ; but we shall find him confessing in the 
sequel that it proved highly injurious to his bodily health. 



CHAPTER V 

Marmion — Edition of Dryden's Life and Works — Mr. 
Morritt of Rokebv — Domestic Life — Education of 
Children — 1806-1809. 

During the whole of 1806 and 1807 Dryden° continued 
to occupy the greater share of Scott's literary hours ; but 
in November, 1806, he began Marmion. 

He was at this time in communication with several 
booksellers, each of whom would wdllingly have engrossed 5 
his labour; but from the moment that his undertakings 
began to be serious, he seems to have acted on the maxim, 
that no author should ever let any one house fancy that 
they had obtained a right of monopoly over his works. 
Of the conduct of Messrs. Longman, he has attested that it 10 
was liberal beyond his expectation; but, nevertheless, a 
negotiation which they now opened proved fruitless. 
Constable offered a thousand guineas for the poem very 
shortly after it was begun, and without having seen one 
line of it. It is hinted in the Introduction of 1830, that 15 
})rivate circumstances rendered it desirable for Scott to 
obtain the immediate command of such a sum ; the price 
was actually paid long before the book was pubhshed; 
and it suits very well with Constable's character to sup- 
pose that liis readiness to advance the money may have 20 
outstripped the calculations of more established dealers, 
and thus cast the balance in his favour. He was not, 
however, so unwise as to keep the whole adventure to 
himself. His bargain being concluded, he tendered one- 
G 81 



82 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

fourth of the copyright to Miller of Albemarle Street, 
and another to John Murray, then of Fleet Street; and 
the latter at once replied, ''We both view it as honour- 
able, profitable, and glorious to be concerned in the pub- 

slication of a new poem by Walter Scott." The news that 
a thousand guineas had been paid for an unseen and un- 
finished MS. seemed in those days portentous; and it 
must be allowed that the man who received such a sum 
for a performance in embryo, had made a great step in the 

lo hazards as well as in the honours of authorship. The 
bulky appendix of notes, including a mass of curious 
antiquarian quotations, must have moved somewhat 
slowly through the printer's hands ; but Marmion was at 
length ready for publication by the middle of February 

15 1808. 

I shall not say anything more of Marmion in this place, 
than that I have always considered it as on the whole the 
greatest of Scott's poems. There is a certain light, easy, 
virgin charm about the Lay, which we look for in vain 

20 through the subsequent volumes of his verse; but the 
superior strength, and breadth, and boldness both of con- 
ception and execution in the Marmion appear to me in- 
disputable. The great blot, the combination of 7nean 
felony with so many noble qualities in the character of the 

25 hero, was, as the poet says, severely commented on at the 
time by the most ardent of his early friends, Leyden; 
but though he admitted the justice of that criticism, he 
chose "to let the tree lie as it had fallen." He was also 
sensible that many of the subordinate and connecting 

30 parts of the narrative are flat, harsh, and obscure — but 
would never make any serious attempt to do away with 
these imperfections ; and perhaps they, after all, heighten 
by contrast the effect of the passages of high-wrought en- 



I 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 83 

thusiasm which alone he considered, in after days, with 
satisfaction. 

Before quitting Marmion I ought to say that, Uke the 
Lay, this and the subsequent great poems were all first 
published in a splendid quarto form. The 2000 of the 5 
original Marmion, price a guinea and a half, were disposed 
of in less than a month ; and twelve octavo editions be- 
tween 1808 and 1825, had carried the sale to upwards of 
30,000 copies, before the author included it in the collec- 
tion of his poetry with biographical prefaces in 1830 ; lo 
since which period there have been frequent reprints; 
making an aggregate legitimate circulation between 1808 
and 1848 of about 60,000. 

Ere the poem was published, a heavy task, begun earher, 
and continued throughout its progress, had been nearly is 
completed ; and there appeared in the last week of April 
1808, The Works of John Dry den, now first collected; with 
notes historical, critical, and explanatory, and a Life of the 
Author. — Eighteen volumes 8vo. This was the bold specu- 
lation of William Miller of Albemarle Street ; and the 20 
editor's fee, at forty guineas the volume, was L.756. It 
was better received than any one, except perhaps the 
courageous bookseller himself, had anticipated. The 
entire work was reprinted in 1821 ; — since then the Life 
of Dryden had its place in various editions of Scott's prose 25 
miscellanies; nor perhaps does that class of his writings 
include any piece which keeps a higher estimation. 

On the w^hole, it is impossible to doubt that the success 
of Dryden in rapidly reaching, and till the end of a long 
life holding undisputed, the summit of public favour and 30 
reputation, in spite of his "brave neglect" of minute 
finishing, narrow laws, and prejudiced authorities, must 
have had a powerful effect in nerviig Scott's hope and 



84 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

resolution for the wide ocean of literary enterprise into 
which he had now fairly launched his bark. Like Dry den, 
he felt himself to be '^ amply stored with acquired know- 
ledge, much of it the fruits of early reading and applica- 
stion"; anticipated that though, ''while engaged in the 
hurry of composition, or overcome by the lassitude of 
continued hterary labour," he should sometimes ''draw 
with too much liberality on a tenacious memory," no 
"occasional imperfections would deprive him of his 

lo praise"; in short, made up his mind that "pointed and 
nicely-turned lines, sedulous study, and long and repeated 
correction and revision" would all be dispensed with, — 
provided their place were supphed as in Dryden by "ra- 
pidity of conception, a readiness of expressing every idea 

15 without losing anything by the way — perpetual anima- 
tion and elasticity of thought — and language never 
laboured, never loitering, never (in Dryden's own phrase) 
cursedly confined. ^^ 
I believe that Scott had, in 1807, agreed wdth London 

20 booksellers as to the superintendence of two other large 
collections, the Somers' Tracts° and the Sadler State 
Papei^,° but it seems that Constable first heard of these 
engagements when he accompanied the second cargo of 
Marmion to the great southern market ; and, alarmed at 

25 the prospect of losing his hold on Scott's industry, he at 
once invited him to follow up his Dryden by an Edition 
of Swif t° on the same scale, — offering, moreover, to double 
the rate of payment; that is to say, to give him L.1500 
for the new undertaking. This munificent tender was 

30 accepted ; and as early as May 1808, I find Scott writing 
in all directions for books, pamphlets, and MSS., likely to 
be serviceable in illustrating the Life and Works of the 
Dean of St. Patrick's. 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 85 

It was not long before some of the dull malignants of 
the Parliament House began to insinuate what at length 
found a dull and dignified mouthpiece in the House of 
Commons — that if a Clerk of Session had any real busi- 
ness to do, it could not be done well by a man who found 5 
time for more literary enterprises than anj^ other author 
of the age undertook — "wrote more books," Lord Archi- 
bald Hamilton serenely added, ''than any body could find 
leisure to read" — and, moreover, mingled in general 
society' as much as many that had no pursuit but pleasure. 10 

He had now reached a period of life after which real 
friendships are but seldom formed ; and it is fortunate 
that another with an Englishman of the highest class of 
accomplishments had been thoroughly compacted before 
death cut the ties between him and George Elhs — be- 15 
cause his dearest intimates within Scotland had of course 
but a slender part in his written correspondence. Mr. 
Morritt of Rokeby and his wife had long been intimate with 
Lady Louisa Stuart and Mr. William Rose; and the 
meeting, therefore, had been well prepared for. It took 20 
place at Edinburgh in June. Scott shewed them the lions 
of the town and its vicinity, exactly as if he had nothing 
else to attend to but their gratification. 

Mr. Morritt's mention of the "happy young family 
clustered round him" reminds me that I ought to say a 25 
few words on Scott's method of treating his children in 
their early days. He had now two boys and two girls ; ^ — 
and he never had more. He was not one of those who take 
much dehght in a mere infant ; but no father ever devoted 
more time and tender care to his offspring than he did to 30 
each of his, as they reached the age when they could 

1 Charlotte Sophia, born in October 1799; Walter, October 
1801; Anne, February 1803; Charles, December 1805. 



86 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

listen to him, and understand his talk. Like their play- 
mates, Camp and the greyhounds, they had at all times 
free access to his study ; he never considered their prattle 
as any disturbance ; they went and came as pleased their 
5 fancy; he was always ready to answer their questions; 
and when they, unconscious how he was engaged, entreated 
him to lay down his pen and tell them a story, he w^ould 
take them on his knee, repeat a ballad or a legend, kiss 
them, and set them down again to their marbles or nine- 

lopins, and resume his labour, as if refreshed by the inter- 
ruption. From a very early age he made them dine at 
table, and '' to sit up to supper" was the great reward when 
they had been ''verj^ good bairns." In short, he consid- 
ered it as the highest duty as well as the sweetest pleasure 

15 of a parent to be the companion of his children ; he par- 
took all their little joys and sorrows, and made his kind 
unformal instructions to blend so easily and playfully 
with the current of their own sayings and doings, that so 
far from regarding him wuth any distant awe, it was never 

20 thought that any sport or diversion could go on in the right 
way, unless papa were of the party, or that the rainiest 
day could be dull, so he were at home. 

Of the irregularity of his own education he speaks with 
regret, in the autobiographical fragment written this 

25 year at Ashestiel ; yet his practice does not look as if that 
feeling had been strongly rooted in his mind ; — for he 
ne^'er did shew much concern about regulating systemati- 
cally what is usually called education in the case of his 
children. It seemed, on the contrary, as if he attached 

30 little importance to anything else, so he could perceive 
that the young curiosity was excited — the intellect, by 
whatever springs of interest, set in motion. He detested 
and despised the whole generation of modern children's 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 87 

books, in which the attempt is made to convey accm^ate 
notions of scientific minutiic : dehghting cordially, on the 
other hand, in those of the preceding age, which, addressing 
themselves chiefly to the imagination, obtain through it, 
as he believed, the best chance of stirring our graver facul- s 
ties also. He exercised the memor^^ by selecting for tasks 
of recitation passages of popular verse the most hkely 
to catch the fancy of children ; and gradually familiarized 
them with the ancient history of their own countr}', by 
arresting attention, in the course of his own oral narra- lo 
tions, on incidents and characters of a similar description. 
Nor did he neglect to use the same means of quickening 
curiosity as to the events of sacred history. On Sunday 
he never rode — at least not until his growing infirmit}^ 
made his pony almost necessary to him — for it was his 15 
principle that all domestic animals have a full right to 
their Sabbath of rest; but after he had read the prayers 
and lessons of the day, he usually walked with his whole 
family, dogs included, to some favourite spot at a consid- 
erable distance from the house — most frequently the 20 
ruined tower of Elibank — and there dined with them in 
the open air on a basket of cold provisions, mixing his wmQ 
with the water of the brook beside which they all were 
grouped around him on the turf ; and here, or at home, if 
the weather kept them from their ramble, his Sunday 25 
talk was just such a series of bibhcal lessons as that which 
we have preserved for the permanent use of rising genera- 
tions, in his Tales of a Grandfather on the early history 
of Scotland. I wish he had committed that other series 
to writing too ; — how different that would have been from 30 
our thousand compilations of dead epitome and imbecile 
cant ! He had his Bible, the Old Testament especially, 
by heart ; and on these days inwove the simple pathos or 



88 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

sublime enthusiasm of Scripture, in whatever story he 
was teUing, with the same picturesque richness as in his 
week-day tales the quaint Scotch of Pitscottie,° or some 
rude romantic old rhyme from Barbour's° Bruce or BUnd 
5Harry's° Wallace. 

By many external accomplishments, either in girl or 
boy, he set little store. He delighted to hear his daughters 
sing an old ditty, or one of his own framing ; but, so the 
singer appeared to feel the spirit of her ballad, he was not 

10 at all critical of the technical execution. There was one 
thing, however, on which he fixed his heart hardly less 
than the ancient Persians of the Cyropaidia° : like them, 
next to love of truth, he held love of horsemanship for the 
prime point of education. As soon as his eldest girl could 

IS sit a pony, she was made the regular attendant of his 
mountain rides; and they all, as they attained sufficient 
strength, had the like advancement. He taught them to 
think nothing of tumbles, and habituated them to his own 
reckless delight in perilous fords and flooded streams; 

20 and they all imbibed in great perfection his passion for 
horses — as well, I may venture to add, as his deep rever- 
ence for the more important article of that Persian train- 
ing. '' Without courage," he said, "there cannot be truth ; 
and without truth there can be no other virtue." 

25 He had a horror of boarding-schools ; never allowed his 
girls to learn anything out of his own house; and chose 
their governess — Miss Miller — who about this time was 
domesticated with them, and never left them while they 
needed one, — with far greater regard to her kind good 

30 temper and excellent moral and religious principles, than 
to the measure of her attainments in what are called 
fashionable accomplishments. The admirable system of 
education for boys in Scotland combines all the advan- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 89 

tages of public and private instruction; his carried their 
satchels to the High-School, when the family was in Edin- 
burgh, just as he had done before them, and shared of 
course the evening society of their happy home. But he 
rarely, if ever, left them in town, when he could himself s 
be in the country ; and at Ashestiel he was, for better or 
for worse, liis eldest boy's daily tutor, after he began 
Latin. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Lady of the Lake — Excursion to the Hebrides — Pur- 
chase of Abbotsford— 1809-1812. 

Scott had by the end of 1809 all but completed his 
third great poem; yet this year also was crowded with 
miscellaneous Uterary labours. In it he made great pro- 
gress with Swift, and in it he finished and saw published 

5 his edition of the Sadler Papers ; the notes copious, curious, 
Hvely and entertaining, and the Life of Sir Ralph° a very 
pleasing specimen of his style. Several volumes of the 
huge Somers' Collection, illustrated throughout with simi- 
lar care, were also issued in 1809 ; and I suppose he re- 

lo ceived his fee for each volume as it appeared — the whole 
sum amounting, when the last came out in 1812, to 1300 
guineas. His labours on these collections were gradually 
storing his mind with that minute knowledge of the leading 
persons and events both of Scotch and English history, 

IS which made his conversation on such subjects that of one 
who had rather lived with than read about the departed. 
He delighted in them, and never complained that they 
interrupted disadvantageously the works of his higher 
genius. 

2o Early in May the Lad}' of the Lake came out — as her 
two elder sisters had done — in all the majesty of quarto, 
with every accompanying grace of typography, and with 
moreover an engraved frontispiece of Saxon's° portrait of 
Scott; the price of the brok two guineas. For the copy- 
90 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 91 

right the poet had nominally received 2000 guineas, but 
as John Ballantyne° and Co, retained three-fourths of the 
property to themselves (Miller of London purchasing the 
other fourth), the author's profits were, or should have 
been, more than this. 5 

Mr. Cadell, the publisher of this Memoir, then a young 
man in training for his profession, retains a strong im- 
pression of the interest which the quarto excited before it 
was on the counter. I do not recollect that any of all the 
author's works was ever looked for with more intense 10 
anxiety, or that any one of them excited a more extraor- 
dinary sensation when it did appear. The whole country 
rang with the praises of the poet — crowds set off to view 
the scenery of Loch Katrine, till then comparatively 
unknown ; and as the book came out just before the season 15 
for excursions, every house and inn in that neighbom*hood 
was crammed with a constant succession of visitors. It 
is a well-ascertained fact, that from the date of the publi- 
cation of the Lad}^ of the Lake, the post-horse duty in 
Scotland rose in an extraordinary degree, and indeed it 20 
continued to do so regularly for a number of years, the 
author's succeeding works keeping up the enthusiasm for 
our scenery which he had thus originally created." 

In their reception of this work, the critics were for once 
in full harmony with each other, and with the popular voice. 25 
The Lay, if I may venture to state the creed now^ estab- 
lished, is, I should say, generally considered as the most 
natural and original, Marmion as the most pow^erful and 
splendid, the Lady of the Lake as the most interesting, 
romantic, picturesque, and graceful of his great poems. 30 

Of its success he speaks as follows in 1830 : — "It was 
certainly so extraordinary as to induce me for the moment 
to conclude that I had at last fixed a nail in the proverbi- 



92 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

ally inconstant wheel of Fortune. But I can with honest 
truth exculpate myself from having been at any time a 
partisan of my own poetry, even when it was in the high- 
est fashion with the million." 

5 James Ballantyne has preserved in his Memorandum an 
anecdote strikingly confirmative of the most remarkable 
statement in this page of Scott's confessions. ''I remem- 
ber," he says, ''going into his library shortly after the 
publication of the Lady of the Lake, and finding Miss 

lo Scott (who was then a very young girl) there by herself. 
I asked her — 'Well, Miss Sophia, how do you like the 
Lady of the Lake?' Her answer was given with per- 
fect simplicity — 'Oh, I have not read it : papa says 
there's nothing so bad for young people as reading bad 

15 poetry.'" 

In fact, his children in those days had no idea of the 
source of his distinction — or rather, indeed, that his posi- 
tion was in any respect different from that of other Advo- 
cates, Sheriffs, and Clerks of Session. The eldest boy 

20 came home one afternoon about this time from the High 
School, with tears and blood hardened together upon his 
cheeks. — "Well, Wat," said his father, "what have you 
been fighting about to-day ? " With that the boy blushed 
and hung his head, and at last stammered out — that he 

25 had been called a lassie. "Indeed!" said Mrs. Scott, 
"this was a terrible mischief to be sure." "You may say 
what you please, mamma," Wat answered roughly, 
"but I dinna think there's a waufer (shabbier) thing in the 
world than to be a lassie, to sit boring at a clout." Upon 

30 further inquiry it turned out that one or two of his com- 
panions had dubbed him The Lady of the Lake, and the 
phrase was to him incomprehensible, save as conveying 
some imputation on his prowess, which he accordingly 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 93 

vindicated in the usual style of the Yards. Of the poem 
he had never before heard. 

On returning from a pleasant expedition to the Hebrides 
and establishing himself at Ashestiel, Scott, in searching 
an old desk for fishing-flies one morning, found the for- 5 
gotten MS. of the first two or three chapters of Waverley. 
From a letter of James Ballantyne's on now reading these 
chapters, it is plain that he was not their unfavourable 
critic of 1805 ; but though he augured '^success " if the novel 
were completed, he added that he could not say ''how 10 
much," and honestly confessed that the impression made on 
his mind was far from resembling that he had received from 
the first specimen of the Lady of the Lake : and once more 
the fated MS. was restored to its hiding-place. But this 
was not the onlj^ unwelcome communication from that 15 
quarter. Already their publishing adventure began to 
wear a bad aspect. Between 1805 and the Christmas of 
1809, Scott invested in the Ballantjme firms not less than 
£9000; by this time probably there had been a farther 
demand on his purse ; and now the printer's triumph 20 
in the fast multipljing editions of the Lady of the Lake 
was darkened with ominous reports about their miscel- 
laneous speculations — such as the Beaumont and Flet- 
cher° of Weber — the ''Tixall Poetry," — and the His- 
tory of the Culdees° by Dr. Jamieson.° But a still more 25 
serious business was the Edinburgh Annual Register. 
Its two first volumes were issued about this time, and ex- 
pectation had been highly excited by the announcement 
that the historical department was in the hands of Southey, 
while Scott and other eminent persons were to contribute 30 
to its miscellaneous literature and science. Neverthe- 
less, the public were alarmed by the extent of the history, 
and the prospect of two volumes annually, and though 



94 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

the work was continued during a long series of years, it 
never profited the projectors. 

Throughout 1811, his serious labour continued to be 
bestowed on the Swift; but this and all other literary 

5 tasks were frequently interrupted in consequence of a 
step which he took early in the year. He had now at 
last the near prospect of emolument from his Edinburgh 
post. For, connected with the other reforms in the Scotch 
judicature, was a plan for allowing the retirement of func- 

lotionaries, who had served to an advanced period of life, 
upon pensions — while the effective Clerks of Session were 
to be paid not by fees, but by fixed salaries of £1300; 
and contemplating a speedy accession of income so con- 
siderable as this, he resolved to place himself in the situa- 

istion to which he had probably from his earUest days 
looked forward as the highest object of ambition, that of 
a Tweedside Laird. — Sit mihi sedes utinam sen€ct(B!° 

And the place on which he had fixed his views, though 
not to the common eye very attractive, had long been 

2oone of peculiar interest for him. I have often heard 
him tell, that when travelling in boyhood with his father 
from Selkirk to Melrose, the old man desired the carriage 
to halt at the foot of an eminence, and said, "We must 
get out here, Walter, and see a thing quite in your line." 

25 His father then conducted him to a rude stone on the edge 
of an acclivity about half a mile above the Tweed, which 
marks the spot — 

Where gallant Cessford's life-blood dear 
Reeked on dark Elliot's border spear. 

30 This was the conclusion of the battle of Melrose, fought 
in 1526, between the Earls of Angus and Home and the 
two chiefs of the race of Kerr on the one side, and Bug- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 95 

cleuch on the other, in sight of the young King James V., 
the possession of whose person was the object of the con- 
test. This battle is often mentioned in the Border Min- 
strelsy, and the reader will find a long note on it, under the 
lines wnich I have just quoted from the Lay of the Last S 
Minstrel. In the names of Skirmish- field, Charge-Law° 
and so forth, various incidents of the fight have found a 
lasting record; the spot where the retainer of Buccleuch 
terminated the pursuit bj^ the mortal wound of Kerr of 
Cessford (ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe) , has always lo 
been called Turn-again. 1\\ his own future domain the 
young minstrel had before him the scene of the last great 
Clan-battle of the Borders. 

On the 12th of May 1811, he writes thus to James 
Ballantyne, — " M3' lease of Ashestiel is out. I have, 15 
therefore, resolved to purchase a piece of ground sufficient 
for a cottage and a few fields. There are two pieces, either 
of which would suit me, but both would make a very desir- 
able property indeed. They stretch along the Tweed, on 
the opposite side from Lord Somer^dlle, and could be had 20 
for between £7000 and £8000 — or either separate for 
about half the sum. I have serious thoughts of one or 
both, and must have recourse to my pen to make the matter 
easy. The worst is the difficulty which John might find 
in advancing so large a sum as the copyright of a new poem ; 25 
supposing it to be made payable within a year at farthest 
from the work going to press, — which would be essential 
to my purpose. Yet the Lady of the Lake came soon 
home. I have a letter this morning giving me good hope 
of my Treasury business being carried through: if this 30 
takes place, I will buy both the httle farms, which will 
give me a mile of the beautiful turn of Tweed above Gala- 
foot — if not, I will confine myself to one. It is proper 



96 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

John and you should be as soon as possible apprized of these 
my intentions, which I believe you will think reasonable 
in my situation, and at my age, while I may yet hope to sit 
under the shade of a tree of my own planting. I hope this 
5 Register will give a start to its predecessors ; I assure you 
I shall spare no pains. John must lend his earnest atten- 
tion to clear his hands of the quire stock, and to taking in 
as little as he can unless in the way of exchange ; in short, 
reefing our sails, which are at present too much spread for 

loour ballast." 

It would no doubt have been wise not to buy land at all 
until he had seen the Treasurj^ arrangement as to his 
clerkship completed — until he had completed also the 
poem on which he relied mainly for the purchase-money ; 

15 above all, until ''John reefed his sails" ; but he contented 
himself with one of the farms, that comprising the scene 
of Cessford's slaughter ; the cost being L.4000 — one-half 
of which was borrowed of his brother. Major John Scott, 
the other, raised by the Ballantynes on the securitj^ of 

20 the long-meditated Rokeby. The farm consisted of a 
meadow or haugh along the banks of the river, and a. tract 
of undulated ground behind, all in a neglected state, un- 
drained, wretchedly enclosed, much of it covered with the 
native heath. The house was small and poor, with a 

25 common kail-yard on one flank, and a staring barn on the 
other ; while in front appeared a filthy pond covered with 
ducks and duckweed, from which the whole tenement had 
derived the unharmonious designation of Clarty Hole. 
But the Tweed was every thing to him — a beautiful 

30 river, flowing broad and bright over a bed of milkwhite 
pebbles, unless here and there where it darkened into a 
deep pool, overhung as yet only by the birches and alders 
which had survived the stateher growth of the primitive 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 97 

Forest ; and the first hour that he took possession he claimed 
for his farm the name of the adjoining ford, situated just 
above the influx of the classical tributary Gala. As might 
be guessed from the name of Abbotsford, these lands had all 
belonged of old to the great Abbey of Melrose ; and indeed 5 
the Duke of Buccleuch, as the territorial representative 
of that religious brotherhood, still retains some seignorial 
rights over them and almost all the surrounding district. 
Another feature of no small interest in Scott's eyes was an 
ancient Roman road leading from the Eildon hills to this 10 
ford, the remains of which, however, are now mostly 
sheltered from view amidst his numerous plantations. 
The most graceful and picturesque of all the monastic 
ruins in Scotland, the Abbey of Melrose itself, is visible 
from many points in the immediate neighbourhood of the 15 
house ; and last, not least, on the rising ground full in view 
across the river, the traveller may still observe the chief 
traces of that celebrated British barrier, the Catrail° 
Such was the territory on which his prophetic eye already 
beheld rich pastures, embosomed among flourishing groves, 20 
where his children's children should thank the founder. 
To his brother-in-law Mr. Carpenter he writes, "I have 
bought a property extending along the banks of the river 
Tweed for about half-a-mile. This is the greatest incident 
which has lately taken place in our domestic concerns, and 25 
I assure j^ou we are not a little proud of being greeted as 
laird and lady of Abbotsford.'^ 

In January 1812, Scott entered upon the enjoyment of 
his proper salary as a clerk of Session, which, with his 
sheriffdom, gave him from this time till very near the close 30 
of his life, a professional income of L. 1600 a-year. 

He finally left Ashestiel at Whitsuntide ; and the day 
when this occurred was a sad one for many a poor neigh- 

H 



98 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

bour — for they lost, both in him and his wife, very gen- 
erous protectors. In such a place, among the few evils 
which counterbalance so many good things in the condi- 
tion of the peasantry, the most afflicting is the want of 
5 access to medical advice. As far as their means and skill 
would go, they had both done their utmost to supply 
this want ; and Mrs. Scott, in particular, had made it her 
business to visit the sick in their scattered cottages, and 
bestowed on them the contents of her medicine-chest as 

lowell as of the larder and cellar, with the same unwearied 
kindness that I observed in her afterwards as lady of 
Abbotsford. Their children remembered the parting 
scene as one of unmixed affliction — but it had had its 
lighter features. To an English friend, on the 25th, Scott 

15 wrote: — ^'The neighbours have been much dehghted 
with the procession of my furniture, in which old swords, 
bows, targets, and lances, made a very conspicuous 
show. A family of turkeys was accommodated within 
the helmet of some -preux chevalier° of ancient Border 

2o fame ; and the very cows, for aught I know, were bearing 
banners and muskets. I assure your ladyship that this 
caravan, attended by a dozen of ragged rosy peasant 
children, carrying fishing-rods and spears, and leading 
poneys, greyhounds, and spaniels, would, as it crossed the 

25 Tweed, have furnished no bad subject for the pencil, 
and really reminded me of one of the g3^psey groupes of 
Callot° upon their march." 

The necessary alterations on the old farm-house imme- 
diately commenced ; and besides raising its roof and pro- 

30 jecting some of the lower windows, a rustic porch, a sup- 
plemental cott-age at one end, and a fountain to the south, 
soon made their appearance. 



CHAPTER VII 

Publication of Rokeby and the Bridal of Triermain — 
Commercial Difficulties — Reconciliation with Con- 
stable — Voyage to the Shetland, Orkne5^ and Hebridean 
Islands — Publication of the Life and Works of Swift 
— and of Waverley — 1812-1814. 

This was one of the busiest summers of Ms busy hfe. 
Till the 12th of July he was at his post in the Court of 
Session five days every week ; but every Saturday evening 
found him at Abbotsford, to observe the progress his 
labourers had made wnthin doors and without in his ^ 
absence ; and on Monday night he returned to Edinburgh. 
Even before the Summer Session commenced, he appears 
to have made some advance in his Rokeby, for he writes 
to Mr. Morritt, from Abbotsford, on the 4th of May — 
"As for the house and the poem, there are twelve masons lo 
hammering at the one, and one poor noddle at the other — 
so they are both in progress"; and his hterary tasks 
throughout the long vacation were continued under the 
same sort of disadvantage. That autumn he had, in fact, 
no room at all for himself. The only parlour which had is 
been hammered into habitable condition, served at once 
for dining-room, drawing-room, school-room, and study. 
A window looking to the river was kept sacred to his desk ; 
an old bed-curtain was nailed up across the room close 
behind his chair, and there, whenever the spade, the 20 
dibble, or the chisel (for he took his full share in all the 
work on hand) was laid aside, he phed his pen, apparently 

99 



100 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

undisturbed and unannoyed by the surrounding confu- 
sion of masons and carpenters, to say nothing of the lady's 
small talk, the children's babble among themselves, or 
their repetition of their lessons. The truth no doubt 
5 was, that when at his desk he did little more, as far as 
regarded poetry, than write down the lines which he had 
fashioned in his mind while pursuing his vocation as a 
planter. By and by, he says to Terry° : — ''The acorns 
are coming up fast, and Tom Purdie is the happiest and 

lomost consequential person in the world. My present 
work is building up the well with some debris from the 
Abbey. The worst of all is, that while my trees grow 
and my fountain fills, my purse, in an inverse ratio, sinks 
to zero." 

15 Scott had promised to spend part of this autumn with 
Morritt; but now, busied with his planting, and contin- 
ually urged by Ballantyne to have the Quarto ready by 
Christmas, he would willingly have trusted his friend's 
knowledge in place of his own research. Morritt urgently 

20 represented, in reply, the expediency of a leisurely per- 
sonal inspection. This appeal was not to be resisted and 
he proceeded the week after to Rokeby, travelling on horse- 
back, his eldest boy and girl on their poneys, while Mrs. 
Scott followed in the carriage. 

25 At Rokeby he remained about a week; and how he 
spent it is well told in Mr. Morritt's Memorandum: — 
"The morning after he arrived he said — 'You have often 
given me materials for romance — now I want a good 
robber's cave, and an old church of the right sort.' We 

30 rode out, and he found what he wanted in the ancient slate 
quarries of Brignal and the ruined Abbey of Egglestone. 
I observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild- 
flowers and herbs on the side of a bold crag near his in- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 101 

tended cave of Guj^ Denzil; and could not help saying, 
that as he was not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, 
violets, and primroses would be as poetical as any of the 
humble plants he was examining. I laughed, in short, 
at his scrupulousness ; but I understood him when he re- s 
plied, 'that in nature herself no two scenes were exactly 
alike, and that whoever copied truly what was before his 
eyes, would possess the same variet}^ in his descriptions, 
and exhibit apparentlj^ an imagination as boundless as 
the range of nature in the scenes he recorded ; whereas — lo 
whoever trusted to imagination, would soon find his own 
mind circumscribed and contracted to a few favourite 
images, and the repetition of these would sooner or later 
produce that ^-er}^ monotony and barrenness which had 
always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands of any is 
but the patient worshippers of truth. Besides which,' 
he said, 'local names and peculiarities make a fictitious 
stor}'- look so much better in the face.' In fact, from his 
boyish habits, he was but half satisfied with the most 
beautiful scenery when he could not connect with it some 20 
local legend, and when I was forced sometimes to confess 
with the Knife-grinder, 'Story ! God bless you ! I have 
none to tell, sir' — he would laugh and say, 'then let us 
make one — nothing so easy as to make a tradition.'" 
Mr. Morritt adds, that he had brought with him about 25 
half the Bridal of Triermain — and promised himself 
particular satisfaction in laying a trap for Jeffrey. ° 

Crowded as this year was with multifarious cares and 
tasks — the romance of Rokeby was finished before the 
close of 1812. Though it had been long in hand, the MS. 30 
bears abundant evidence of its being the prima cura° : three 
cantos at least reached the printer through the Melrose 
post — written on paper of various sorts and sizes — full 



102 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

of blots and interlineations — the closing couplets of a 
despatch now and then encircling the page, and mutilated 
by the breaking of the seal. 

On the day of pubhcation (January 12, 1813), Scott 
5 writes gaily enough to Morritt, from his seat at the Clerks' 
table: — ''The book has gone off here very bobbishly; 
for the impression of 3000 and upwards is within two or 
three score of being exhausted, and the demand for these 
continuing faster than they can be boarded. I am heart- 

lo ily glad of this, for now I have nothing to fear but a bank- 
ruptcy in the Gazette of Parnassus ; but the loss of five 
or six thousand pounds to my good friends and school 
companions would have afflicted me very much." 

I have alread}^ adverted to the fact that Scott felt it a 

15 relief, not a fatigue, to compose the Bridal of Triermain 
'pari passu° with Rokeby. In answer, for example, to 
one of his printer's letters, he says, ''I fully share in j^our 
anxiety to get forward the grand work ; but, I assure you, 
I feel the more confidence from coquetting with the 

20 guerilla." The quarto was followed, within two months, 
by the small volume which had been designed for a twin- 
birth; — the MS. had been transcribed by one of the 
Ballantynes themselves, in order to guard against any 
indiscretion of the press-people ; and the mystification, 

25 aided and abetted bj^ Erskine, in no small degree height- 
ened the interest of its reception. Except Morritt, Scott 
had no English confidant. Whether any of his com- 
panions in the Parliament House v/ere in the secret, I 
have never heard ; but I can scarcely believe that any 

30 of those who had known him and Erskine from their 
youth upwards, could have believed the latter capable 
either of the invention or the execution of this airy and 
fascinating romance in little. Mr. Jeffrey, as it happened, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 103 

made a voyage that year to America, and thus lost the 
opportunity of immediately expressing his opinion either 
of Rokebj'' or of Triermain. The Quarterly critic seems 
to have been completely deceived. 

The limits of this narrative do not admit of minute 5 
details concerning the commercial adventures in which 
Scott was entangled ; and those of the period we have now 
reached are so painful that I am very willing to spare 
them. By the spring of 1813 the crisis in the war affected 
credit universally ; and while the oldest firms in every 10 
department of the trade of literature had difficulties to 
contend with, the pressure brought many of humbler 
resources to extremity. It was so with the house of John 
Ballantyne & Co. ; which had started with no sohd capi- 
tal except what Scott supplied; and had been entrusted to 15 
one who never looked beyond the passing day — availed 
himself with a bhnd recklessness of the system of dis- 
counting and renewing bills — and, though attached to 
Scott by the strongest ties of grateful veneration, yet 
allowed himself to neglect month after month the most 20 
important of his duties — that of keeping the only mon- 
eyed partner accurately informed as to the actual obliga- 
tions and resources of the establishment. 

Mr. John's loose methods of transacting business had 
soon cooled the alhance between his firm and the great 25 
Tory pubhsher of London. Murray's Scotch agency was 
taken away — he retained hardly any connection with 
Scott himself, except as a contributor to his Review, and 
from time to time a friendly visitor in Albemarle Street ; 
and under these altered circumstances, I do not see how 30 
the whole concern of John Ballantyne & Co. could have 
escaped the necessity of an abrupt and disastrous exposure 
A^tliin but a few weeks after the appearance of the Trier- 



104 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

main, had not the personal differences with Constable^ 
been by that time healed. Mr. Hunter had now retired 
from that house; and Constable, released from his influ- 
ence, had been watching with hope the unconcealable 
5 complication in the affairs of this fragile rival. Con- 
stable had never faltered in his conviction that Scott must 
continue to be the ruling spirit in the literature of their 
age : and there were few sacrifices which that sanguine man 
would not have made to regain his hold on the unmatched 

lo author. The Ballantjaies saw the opening for help, and 
their advances were well met ; but some quite unexpected 
calls on Scott compelled him to interfere directh^, and he 
began in his own person a negotiation which, though at the 
time he likened it to that of the treaty of Amiens, was far 

15 from being capriciously protracted, or from leading only 
to a brief and barren truce. Constable, flattered in 
limine by the offer, on fair terms, of a fourth part of the 
remaining copyright of Rokeby, agreed to relieve the 
labouring firm of a mass of its stock : the partners to exert 

20 themselves in getting rid of the residue, and then wind 
up their publishing concern with all convenient speed. 
This was a great relief : on the 18th of May 1813, Scott 
writes to Mr. John — 'Tor the first time these many 
weeks, I shall lay my head on a quiet pillow" : but there 

25 was still much to be achieved. 

His preachments of regularity in book-keeping to John, 
and of abstinence from good cheer to James, were equally 
vain; but, on the other hand, it must be allowed that the 
''hard skirmishes," as he calls them, of May 1813, do not 

30 seem to have left on himself all the impression that might 
have been anticipated. He was in the most vigorous 
of his prime : his temperament was buoyant and hopeful : 
nothing had occurred to check his confidence in the re- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 105 

sources of his own genius and industry. So it was, that 
ere many weeks had passed, he was preparing fresh em- 
barrassments for himself by bidding for another parcel 
of land. As early as the 2()th of June he writes to Con- 
stable as being already aware of this matter, and alleges his 5 
anxiety "to close at once with a very capricious person," 
as the only reason that could have induced him to offer for 
L.5000 the whole copyright of an as yet unwritten poem, 
to be called ''The Nameless Glen." A long correspondence 
ensued, in the course of which Scott mentions ''the Lord 10 
of the Isles," as a title which had suggested itself to him 
in place of "The Nameless Glen" ; but as the negotiation 
did not succeed, I may pass its details. The new property 
which he was so eager to acquire, was that hilly tract 
stretching from the old Roman road near Turn-again 15 
towards the Cauldshiels Loch : a then desolate and naked 
mount aiimiere, which he likens, in a letter of this summer, 
to the Lake of the Genie and the Fisherman in the Arabian 
Tale. To obtain this lake at one extremity of his estate, 
as a contrast to the Tweed at the other, was a prospect 20 
for which hardly any sacrifice would have appeared too 
much ; and he contrived to gratifv his wishes in the course 
of July. 

On the 12th of July, as usual, he removed to Tweedside ; 
but he had not long enjoyed himself in sketching out woods 25 
and walks for the borders of his Fairy Lake before he 
received sharp admonishment. Two lines of a letter to 
the "little Picaroon," dated July 24th, speak already to a 
series of annoyances: — "Dear John, — I sent you the 
order, and have only to hope it arrived safe and in good 30 
time. I waked the boy at three o'clock myself, having 
slept little, less on account of the mone}^ than of the time. 
Surely you should have written, three or four days before, 



106 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

the probable amount of the deficit, and, as on former occa- 
sions, I would have furnished you with means of meeting 
it. These expresses, besides every other inconvenience, 
excite surprise in my family and in the neighbourhood. 
5 I know no justifiable occasion for them but the unexpected 
return of a bill. I do not consider you as answerable for 
the success of plans, but I do and must hold you respon- 
sible for giving me, in distinct and plain terms, your 
opinion as to any difficulties which may occur, and that in 

lo such time that I may make arrangements to obviate them 
if possible." 

Again Constable was consulted; and now a detailed 
statement was submitted to him. On examining it, he 
so expressed himself, that all the partners concurred in 

15 the necessity of submitting forthwith to steps not less 
decisive than painful. Constable again relieved them of 
some of their crushing stock; but he frankly owned that 
he could not do in that way enough to serve them effec-. 
tually ; and Scott was constrained to have recourse to the 

20 Duke of Buccleuch, who with the kindest promptitude 
gave him a guarantee to the extent of £4000, immediateh^ 
available in the money market — the poet insuring his life 
for that sum, and depositing the insurance as security with 
the Duke; while John Ballantyne agreed, in place of a 

25 leisurely winding up of the publishing affair, to terminate 
it with the utmost possible speed, and endeavour to estab- 
lish himself as an auctioneer of books, antiquities, and 
objects of vertu. How bitterly must Scott have felt his 
situation when he wrote thus to John on the 16th August : 

30 — "With regard to the printing, it is my intention to 
retire from that also so soon as I can possibly do so with 
safety to myself, and with the regard I shall always entertain 
for James's interest. Whatever loss I may sustain will 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 107 

be preferable to the life I have lately led, when I seem sur- 
rounded by a sort of magic circle, which neither permits 
me to remain at home in peace, nor to stir abroad with 
pleasure." 

It was in the midst of these distressing occurrences that 5 
Scott received two letters — one from Dr. Stanier Clarke, 
private hbrarian to the Regent, and another, more formal, 
from the Marquis of Hertford, Lord Chamberlain, 
announcing His Royal Highness's desire to nominate him 
to the office of Poet-laureate, which had just fallen vacant 10 
by the death of ]\Ir. Pye. Its emoluments were understood 
by him to be "L.400, or at least L.300 a-year" ; at that time 
such an accession of income must have been welcome; 
and at any rate, what the Sovereign designed as a favour 
and a distinction could not be hghtly waived by Walter 15 
Scott. He felt, however, that holding already two lucra- 
ti\'e offices in the gift of the Crown, he could not gracefully 
accept a tliird, entirely unconnected with his own legal 
profession, while so many eminent men remained wholly 
dependent on their literary exertions; and the friends 20 
whom he consulted, especialh' the Duke of Buccleuch, 
all concurring in the propriety of these scruples, he de- 
clined the royal offer. It is e\ddent that from the first 
he had had Mr. Southey's case in his contemplation. 
The moment he made up his mind as to himself, he wrote 25 
to Mr. Croker and others in the Prince Regent's confi- 
dence, suggesting that name : and he had soon to congratu- 
late his friend of Keswick on assuming the official laurel, 
which ''had been worn of old by Dryden and more lately 
by Warton." Mr. Southey, in an essay long subsequent 30 
to his death, says — ''Sir Walter's conduct was, as it 
always was, characteristically friendly and generous." 

This happened in September. October brought another 



108 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

succession of John Ballantyne's missives, to one of which 
Scott answers : — 'Tor Heaven's sake, treat me as a man, 
not as a milch-cow" ; — and a third crisis, at the a]:>proach 
of the Martinmas term, was again weathered with the 
5 narrowest difficulty — chiefly, as before, through the 
intervention of Constable. All these annoyances pro- 
duced no change whatever in his habits of industry. Dur- 
ing these anxious months of September, October, and 
November, he kept feeding the press from day to day both 

lo with the annotated text of the closing volumes of Swift's 
works, and with the MS. of his Life of the Dean. He had 
also proceeded to mature in his mind the plan of the Lord 
of the Isles, and executed such a portion of the First Canto 
as gave him confidence to renew his negotiation with 

15 Constable for the sale of the whole, or part of its copy- 
right. It was, moreover, at this period, that his eye 
chanced to light once more on the Ashestiel fragment of 
Waverley. He read over those introductory chapters — 
thought they had been undervalued — and determined 

20 to finish the story. 

On the first of July 1814, the Swift, nineteen volumes 
8vo, at length issued from the press. This adventure, 
undertaken by Constable in 1808, had been proceeded in 
during all the variety of their personal relations, and now 

25 came forth when author and publisher felt more warmly 
towards each other than perhaps they had ever before 
done. The impression was of 1250 copies ; and a reprint 
of similar extent was called for in 1824. 

Before Christmas Erskine had perused the gi-eater part 

30 of the first volume, and expressed his decided opinion 
that Waverley would prove the most popular of all his 
friend's writings. The MS. was forthwith copied by John 
Ballantyne, and sent to press. As soon as a volume 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 109 

was ]3riiited, BallantA^ne conveyed it to Constable, who 
did not for a moment doubt from what pen it proceeded, 
but took a few days to consider of the matter, and then 
offered L.700 for the copyright. When we recollect what 
the state of novel hterature in those days was, and thats 
the onh^ exceptions to its mediocrit}", the Irish Tales of 
Miss Edgeworth, how^ever appreciated in refined circles, 
had a circulation so limited that she had never realized 
a tithe of L.700 by the best of them — it must be allowed 
that Constable's offer was a liberal one. Scott's answer, lo 
however, was, that L.700 was too much in case the novel 
should not be successful, and too little if it should. He 
added, "If our fat friend had said L.IOOO, I should have 
been staggered." John did not forget to convey this 
last hint to Constable, but the latter did not choose to 15 
act upon it ; and ultimately agreed to an equal di\asion of 
profits between himself and the author. 

There was a considerable pause between the finishing of 
the first volume and the beginning of the second. Con- 
stable, eager about an extensive Supplement to his Encyclo- 20 
psedia Britannica, earnest!}^ requested Scott to undertake 
a few articles ; and, anxious to gratify the generous book- 
seller, he laid aside his tale until he had finished two essays 
— those on Chivalry and the Drama. They were written 
in the course of April and Mav, and he received for each 25 
of them L. 100. 

A letter of the 9th July to Mr. Morritt gives in more 
exact detail than the author's own recollection could sup- 
ply in 1830, the history of the completion of Waverley, 
which had then been two days published. ''I must now " 30 
(he says) "account for my own laziness, by referring 
you to a small anonymous sort of a novel, which you will 
receive by the mail of this day. It was a very old attempt 



110 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

of mine to embody some traits of those characters and 
manners pecuhar to Scotland, the last remnants of which 
vanished during my own youth. I had written great part 
of the first volume, and sketched other passages, when I 
5 mislaid the MS., and only found it by the merest accident 
as I was rummaging the drawers of an old cabinet ; and I 
took the fancy of finishing it. It has made a very strong 
impression here, and the good people of Edinburgh are 
busied in tracing the author, and in finding out originals 

lo for the portraits it contains. Jeffrey has offered to make 
oath that it is mine, and another great critic has ten- 
dered his affidavit ex contrario° ; so that these authorities 
have divided the Gude Town. Let me know your opinion 
about it. The truth is that this sort of muddling work 

15 amuses me, and I am something in the condition of Joseph 
Surface, who was embarrassed by getting himself too 
good a reputation; for many things may please people 
well enough anonymously, which if they have me in 
the title-page would just give me that sort of ill name 

20 which precedes hanging — and that would be in many 
respects inconvenient, if I thought of again trying a 
grande opus."° 

Morritt, as yet the only English confidant, conveyed on 
volume by volume as he read them his honest criticism : 

25 at last vehemently protesting against the maintenance of 
the incognito. Scott in his reply (July 24th) says: — '^I 
shall not own Waverley ; my chief reason is, that it would 
prevent me the pleasure of writing again. David Hume, 
nephew of the historian, says the author must be of a 

30 Jacobite family and predilections, a yeoman-cavalry man, 
and a Scottish lawyer, and desires me to guess in whom 
these happy attributes are united. I shall not plead 
guilty, however; and as such seems to be the fashion of 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 111 

the day, I ho])e charitable people will believe mj'' affidavit 
in contradiction to all other evidence. The Edinburgh 
faitii now is, that Waverley is written by Jeffrey, ha\dng 
been composed to lighten the tedium of his late transat- 
lantic voyage. So you see the unknown infant is like s 
to come to preferment. In truth, I am not sure it would 
be considered quite decorous for me, as a Clerk of Session, 
to write novels. Judges being monks. Clerks are a sort 
of lay brethren, from whom some solemnity of walk and 
conduct may be expected. So whatever I may do of this lo 
kind, 'I shall whistle it down the wind, and let it prey at 
fortune.' ^ The second edition is, I believe, nearh^ through 
the press. It will hardly be printed faster than it was 
written ; for though the first volume was begun long ago, 
and actually lost for a time, yet the other two were begun 15 
and finished between the 4th June and the first Julj^, 
during all which I attended nw duty in Court, and pro- 
ceeded without loss of time or hindrance of business." 

This statement as to the time occupied by the second 
and third volumes of Waverley, recalls to my memory 20 
a trifling anecdote, which, as connected with a dear friend 
of my youth, whom I have not seen for many years, and 
may very probably never see again in this world, I shall 
here set down, in the hope of affording him a momentary, 
though not an unmixed pleasure, when he msiy chance 25 
to read this compilation on a distant shore — and also 
in the hope that my humble record may impart to some 
active mind in the rising generation a shadow of the 
influence which the reality certainly exerted upon his. 
Happening to pass through Edinburgh in June 1814, 1 30 
dined one day with the gentleman in question (now the 

^Othello, Act III. Scene 3. 



112 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Honourable William Menzies, one of the Supreme Judges 
at the Cape of Good Hope), whose residence was then in 
George Street, situated very near to, and at right angles 
with. North Castle Street. It was a party of very young 
5 persons, most of them, like Menzies and myself, destined 
for the Bar of Scotland, all gay and thoughtless, enjoying 
the first flush of manhood, with little remembrance of the 
yesterday, or care of the morrow. When my companion's 
worthy father and uncle, after seeing two or three bottles 

logo round, left the juveniles to themselves, the weather 
being hot, we adjourned to a library which had one large 
window looking northwards. After carousing here for an 
hour or more, I observed that a shade had come over the 
aspect of my friend, who happened to be placed immedi- 

15 ately opposite to myself, and said something that inti- 
mated a fear of his being unwell. "No," said he, '^I shall 
be well enough presently, if you will only let me sit where 
you are, and take my chair ; for there is a confounded hand 
in sight of me here, which has often bothered me before, 

20 and now it won't let me fill my glass with a good will." 
I rose to change places with him accordingly, and he 
pointed out to me this hand which, like the writing on 
Belshazzar's wall, disturbed his hour of hilarity. ''Since 
we sat down," he said, "I have been watching it — it 

25 fascinates my eye — it never stops — page after page is 
finished and thrown on that heap of MS. and still it goes 
on unwearied — and so it will be till candles are brought 
in, and God knows how long after that. It is the same 
every night — I can't stand a sight of it when I am not 

30 at my books." — ''Some stupid, dogged, engrossing clerk, 
probably," exclaimed myself, or some other giddy youth 
in our society. "No, boys," said our host, "I well know 
what hand it is — 'tis Walter Scott's." This was the 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 113 

hand that, in the evenings of three summer weeks, wrote 
the two last volumes of Waverley. 

The gallant composure with which Scott, when he had 
dismissed a work from his desk, awaited the decision of 
the public — and the healthy elasticity of spirit with 5 
which he could meanwhile turn his whole zeal upon new 
or different objects — are among the features in his char- 
acter which will alwaj^s, I believe, strike the student of 
literary historj^ as most remarkable. It would be diffi- 
cult to exaggerate the importance to his fortunes of this 10 
his first novel. Yet before he had heard of its reception 
in the south, except the whisper of one partial friend, 
he started on a voyage which was likely to occupy two 
months, and during which he could hardly expect to receive 
any letters. 15 

He had been invited to accompany the Commissioners 
of the Northern Light Houses in their annual expedition ; 
and as its programme included the Hebrides, and he had 
already made some progress in the Lord of the Isles, the 
opportunity for refreshing and enlarging his acquaintance 20 
with that region would alone have been a strong tempta- 
tion. But there were many others. The trip was also 
to embrace the isles of Shetland and Orkney, and a vast 
extent of the mainland coasts, no part of which he had 
ever seen — or but for such an offer might ever have much 25 
chance of seeing. The Commissioners were all familiar 
friends of his — WilHam Erskine, then Sheriff of the 
Orkneys, Robert Hamilton, Sheriff of Lanarkshire, Adam 
Duff, Sheriff of Forfarshire, but the real chief was the 
Surveyor-General, the celebrated engineer Mr. Stevenson, 30 
and Scott anticipated special pleasure in his society. "I 
delight," he told Morritt, ''in these professional men of 
talent. They always give you some new lights by the 
I 



114 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

peculiarity of their habits and studies — so different from 
the people who are rounded and smoothed and ground 
down for conversation, and who can say all that every 
other person says — and no more." 
5 To this voyage we owe many of the most striking pas- 
sages in the Lord of the Isles, and the noble romance of 
the Pirate wholly. 

After this voyage, as he passed through Edinburgh, the 
negotiation as to the Lord of the Isles, which had been 

lo protracted through several months, was completed : Con- 
stable agreeing to give fifteen hundred guineas for one- 
half of the copyright, while the other moiet}^ was retained 
by the author. The same sum had been offered at an 
early stage of the affair, but it was not until now accepted, 

15 in consequence of the earnest wish of Messrs. Ballantjme 
to saddle the publisher of the new poem with another pj^ra- 
mid of their old ''quire stock," — which, however. Con- 
stable ultimately persisted in refusing. It may easily 
be believed that John's management during a six weeks' 

20 absence had been such as to render it doubly convenient 
for the Poet to have this matter settled ; and it may also 
be supposed that the progress of Waverley during that 
interval had tended to put the chief parties in good humour 
with each other. For nothing can be more unfounded 

25 than the statement repeated in various memoirs of Scott's 
life, that the sale of the first edition of this immortal Tale 
was slow. It appeared on the 7th of Jul}^, and the whole 
impression (1000 copies) had disappeared within five 
weeks; an occurrence then unprecedented in the case of 

30 an anonymous novel, put forth at what is called among 
publishers the dead season. A second edition of 2000 
copies was at least projected by the 24th of the same 
month : — that appeared before the end of August, and it 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 115 

too had gone off so rapidly that Scott now, in September, 
found Constable eager to treat, on the same terms as 
before, for a third of 1000 copies. This third edition was 
published in October; and when a fourth of the like ex- 
tent was called for in November, I find Scott writing to 5 
John Ballantyne : — ''I suppose Constable won't quarrel 
with a work on which he has netted L.612 in four months, 
with a certaint}' of making it L.IOOO before the year is 
out." It would be idle to enumerate subsequent reprints. 
Well might Constable regret that he had not ventured to 10 
offer L.IOOO for the whole copyright of Waverley ! 

No one of Scott's intimate friends ever had, or could 
have had, the slightest doubt as to the parentage of Wa- 
verley : nor, although he abstained from communicating 
the fact formally to most of them, did he ever affect any 15 
real concealment in the case of such persons; nor, when 
any circumstance arose which rendered the withholding of 
direct confidence on the subject incompatible with perfect 
freedom of feehng on both sides, did he hesitate to make 
the avowal. Nor do I beheve that the mystification ever 20 
answered much purpose among literary men of eminence 
beyond the circle of his personal acquaintance. But it 
would be difficult to suppose that he had ever wished that 
to be otherwise ; it was sufficient for him to set the mob 
of readers at gaze, and above all, to escape the annoyance 25 
of having productions, actually known to be his, made 
the dail}^ and hourl}^ topics of discussion in his presence 
— especially (perhaps) productions in a new walk, to 
which it might be naturally supposed that Lord Byron's 
poetical successes had diverted him. 30 

Loftier romance was never blended with easier, quainter 
humour, by Cervantes. In his familiar delineations he 
had combined the strength of Smollett with the native 



116 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

elegance and unaffected pathos of Goldsmith"; in his 
darker scenes he had revived that real tragedy which 
appeared to have left our theatre with the age of Shak- 
speare; and elements of interest so diverse had been 
5 blended and interwoven with that nameless grace, which, 
more surely perhaps than even the highest perfection in 
the command of any one strain of sentiment, marks the 
mastermind cast in Nature's most felicitous mould. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Publication of the Lord of the Isles and Gay Mannering 
— ^Meeting with Bj^on — Excui'sion to Paris — Pubhca- 
tion of the Field of Waterloo — Paul's Letters — The 
Antiquary — Harold the Dauntless — and the first Tales 
of my Landlord — 1815-1816. 

He writes, on the 25th December, to Constable that he 
"had corrected the last proofs of the Lord of the Isles, 
and was setting out for Abbotsford to refresh the 
machine." And in what did his refreshment of the 
machine consist ? The poem was published on the 15th s 
January; and he says, on that day, to Morritt, "I want to 
shake myself free of Waverley, and accordingly^ have 
made a considerable exertion to finish an odd little tale 
within such time as wiU mystify the public, I trust — un- 
less they suppose me to be Briareus.° Two volumes are lo 
already" printed, and the only persons in my confidence, 
W. Erskine and Ballantyne, are of opinion that it is much 
more interesting than Waverley. It is a tale of private 
hfe, and only varied by the perilous exploits of smugglers 
and excisemen." Guy IMannering was pubhshed on the 15 
24th of February — that is, exactly two months after 
the Lord of the Isles was dismissed from the author's 
desk ; and — making but a narrow^ allowance for the 
operations of the transcriber, printer, bookseller, &c., I 
think the dates I have gathered together confirm the 20 
accuracy of what I have often heard Scott say, that his 

117 



118 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

second novel 'Svas the work of six weeks at a Christmas." 
Such was his recipe "for refreshing the machine." 

I am sorry to have to add, that this severity of labour, 
like the repetition of it which had deplorable effects at a 

slater period, was the result of difficulties about the dis- 
count of John Ballantyne's bills. 

I must not, however, forget that The Lord of the Isles 
was published a month before Guy Mannering. The 
poem was received with an interest much heightened by 

lothe recent and growing success of the mysterious Waver- 
ley. Its appearance, so rapidly following that novel, and 
accompanied with the announcement of another prose 
tale, just about to be pubhshed, by the same hand, puzzled 
and confounded the mob of dulness. The more sagacious 

IS few said to themselves — Scott is making one serious effort 
more in his old hue, and by this it will be determined 
whether he does or does not altogether renounce that 
for his new one. 

This poem is now, I believe, about as popular as Rokeby ; 

20 but it has never reached the same station in general 
favour with the Lay, Marmion, or the Lady of the Lake. 
The instant consumption of 1800 quartos, followed b}^ 
8vo reprints to the number of 12,000, would, in the 
case of almost any other author, have been splendid 

2S success; but as compared with what he had previously 
experienced, even in his Rokeby, and still more so as 
compared with the enormous circulation at once attained 
by Lord Byron's early tales, which were then following 
each other in almost breathless succession, the falUng off 

30 was decided. 

If January brought "disappointment," there was abun- 
dant consolation in store for February 1815. Guy Man- 
nering was received with eager curiosity, and pronounced 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 119 

by acclamation fully worthy to share the honours of Waver- 
ley. The easy transparent flow of its style ; the beautiful 
simplicity, and here and there the wild solemn magnificence 
of its sketches of scenery ; the rapid, ever heightening in- 
terest of the narrative; the unaffected kindhness of feel- 5 
ing, the manly purity of thought, everywhere mingled 
with a gentle humour and a homely sagacity ; but, above 
all, the rich variety and skilful contrast of characters and 
manners at once fresh in fiction, and stamped with the 
unforgeable seal of truth and nature ; these were charms 10 
that spoke to every heart and mind ; and the few murmurs 
of pedantic criticism were lost in the voice of general delight, 
which never fails to welcome the invention that introduces 
to the sympathy of imagination a new group of immortal 
realities. 15 

On the rising of the Court of Session in March, Scott 
went by sea to London with his wife and their eldest girl. 
Six years had elapsed since he last appeared in the metrop- 
ohs ; and brilliant as his reception had then been, it was 
still more so on the present occasion. Scotland had been 20 
visited in the interim, chiefly from the interest excited by 
his WTitings, bj^ crowds of the Enghsh nobility, most of 
whom had found introduction to his personal acquaintance 
— not a few had partaken of his hospitality at Ashestiel 
or Abbotsford. 25 

And now took place James Ballantyne's "mighty 
consummation of the meeting of the two bards." ''Re- 
port," says Scott to Moore,° ''had prepared me to meet a 
man of peculiar habits and a quick temper, and I had 
some doubts whether we were likelj^ to suit each other in 30 
society. I was most agreeably disappointed in this re- 
spect. I found Lord Byron° in the highest degree courte- 
ous, and even kind. We met for an hour or two almost 



120 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

daily, in Mr. Murray's drawing-room, and found a great 
deal to say to each other. We also met frequently in 
parties and evening society, so that for about two months 
I had the advantage of a considerable intimacy with this 

S distinguished individual." 

During the following summer Scott was received in 
France by the distinguished soldiers and statesmen of 
Europe, assembled in Paris after the battle of Waterloo. 
He gave his impressions of this trip in ''Paul's Letters," 

lo published by Constable. 

Scott had written verse as well as prose during his trav- 
els. ''The Field of Waterloo" was pubhshed before the 
end of October; the profits of the first edition being his 
contribution to the fund raised for the rehef of the widows 

IS and children of the soldiers slain in the battle. This piece 
appears to have disappointed those most disposed to sym- 
pathize with the author's views and feelings. The descent 
is indeed heavy from his Bannockburn to his Waterloo : 
the presence, or all but visible reality of what his dreams 

20 cherished, seems to have overawed his imagination, and 
tamed it into a weak pomposity of movement. 

Meanwhile the revision of Paul's Letters was proceed- 
ing ; and Scott had almost immediately on his return con- 
cluded his bargain for the first edition of a third novel 

25 — The Antiquary ; nor was it much later that he com- 
pleted rather a tedious negotiation with another bonnet- 
laird, and added the lands of Kaeside to Abbotsford — 
witness the last words of a letter to Miss Baillie,° dated 
Nov. 12: — "My eldest boy is already a bold horseman 

30 and a fine shot, though only about fourteen years old. 
I assure you I was prouder of the first black-cock he killed, 
than I have been of anything whatever since I first killed 
one myself, and that is twenty years ago. This is all 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 121 

stupid gossip ; but, as Master Corporal Xym° says, 
' things must be as they may : ' you cannot expect grapes 
from thorns, or much amusement from a brain bewildered 
with thorn hedges at Kaeside, for such is the sonorous 
title of my new possession, in virtue of which I subscribe 5 

' Abbotsford & Kaeside." 

The j^ear 1815 may be considered as, for Scott's peace- 
ful tenor of life, an eventful one. That which followed has 
left almost its only traces in the successive appearance of 10 
nine volumes, which attest the prodigal genius and hardly 
less astonishing industry of the man. Early in January 
were published Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk, of which I 
need not now sa}^ more than that they were received with 
lively curiosity, and general, though not vociferous ap- 15 
plause. The first edition was an octavo of 6000 copies; 
and it was followed in the course of the next two or three 
years by a second and a third, amounting together to 
3000 more. The popularity of the novelist was at its 
height; and this admitted, if not avowed, specimen 20 
of Scott's prose, must have been perceived by all who 
had any share of discrimination, to flow from the same 
pen. 

Early in May appeared the novel of The Antiquary, 
which seems to have been begun a little before the close of 25 
1815. Scott wrote to his friend at Rokeby : "I sent j^ou 
some time since, The Antiquary. It is not so interest- 
ing as its predecessors — the period did not admit of so 
much romantic situation. But it has been more fortunate 
than any of them in the sale, for 6000 went off in the first 30 
six days, and it is now at press again ; which is very flat- 
tering to the unknown author." In a letter of the same 
date to Terry, Scott says — "It wants the romance of 



122 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Waverley and the adventure of Guy Mannering; and 
yet there is some salvation about it, for if a man will 
paint from nature, he will be likely to amuse those who are 
daily looking at it." 

5 Considered by itself, this novel seems to me to possess, 
almost throughout, in common with its two predecessors, 
a kind of simple unsought charm, which the subsequent 
works of the series hardly reached, save in occasional 
snatches : — like them it is, in all its humbler and softer 

lo scenes, the transcript of actual Scottish life, as observed 
by the man himself. And I think it must also be allowed 
that he has nowhere displayed his highest art, that of skil- 
ful contrast, in greater perfection. Even the tragic ro- 
mance of Waverley does not set off its MacWheebles 

IS and Galium Begs better than the oddities of Jonathan 
Oldbuck and his circle are relieved, on the one hand by 
the stately gloom of the Glenallans, on the other by the 
stern affliction of the poor fisherman, who, when discovered 
repairing the ''auld black bitch o' a boat" in which his 

20 boy had been lost, and congratulated by his visitor on 
being capable of the exertion, makes answer — "And what 
would you have me to do, unless I wanted to see four 
children starve, because one is drowned? IVs iveel wV 
you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at 

25 your een, when ye lose a friend; but the like 0' us maun to 
our wark again, if our hearts were heating as hard as my 
hammer." 

It may be worth noting, that it was in correcting the 
proof-sheets of this novel that Scott first took to equipping 

,30 his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one 
occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was 
sitting by him, to hunt for a particular passage in Beau- 
mont and Fletcher. John did as he was bid, but did not 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 123 

succeed in discovering the lines. "Hang it, Johnnie/* 
cried Scott, "I believe I can make a motto sooner than 
you will find one." He did so accordingly^; and from 
that hour, whenever memory failed to suggest an appro- 
priate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible s 
mines of ''old play'' or ''old ballad,'' to w^hich we owe 
some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from 
his pen. 

Unlike, I believe, most men, whenever Scott neared the 
end of one composition, his spirit seems to have caught a lo 
new spring of buoyancy, and before the last sheet was 
sent from his desk, he had crowded his brain with the 
imagination of another fiction. The Antiquary was pub- 
lished, as we have seen, in May, but by the beginning 
of April he had already opened to the Ballantynes the 15 
plan of the first Tales of my Landlord ; and — to say 
nothing of Harold the Dauntless which he began shortly 
after the Bridal of Triermain was finished, and which 
he seems to have kept before him for two \^ears as a 
congenial plaything, to be taken up whenever the coach 20 
brought no proof-sheets to jog him as to serious matters — 
he had also, before this time, undertaken to write the his- 
torical department of the Register for 1814. He had not 
yet collected the materials requisite for his historical 
sketch of a year distinguished for the importance and 25 
complexity of its events ; but these, he doubted not, would 
soon reach him, and he felt no hesitation about pledging 
himself to complete, not only that sketch, but four new 
volumes of prose romances — and his Harold the Daunt- 
less also, if Ballantyne could make any suitable arrange- 30 
ment on that score — between the April and the Christmas 
of 1816. 

Why Scott should have been urgently desirous of seeing 



11^4 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

the transaction settled at once, is sufficiently explained 
by the fact, that though so much of Mv. John's old un- 
fortunate stock still remained on hand — and with it 
some occasional recurrence of difficulty as to floating-bills 
5 must be expected — while Mr. James Ballantyne's man- 
agement of pecuniary affairs had not been very careful — 
nevertheless, the sanguine author had gone on purchasing 
one patch of land after another, until his estate had already 
grown from 150 to nearly 1000 acres. The property all 

lo about his original farm had been in the hands of small 
holders (Scottice, cock-lairds) ; these were sharp enough 
to understand that their neighbour could with difficulty 
resist any temptation that might present itself in the shape 
of acres; and thus he proceeded bujdng up lot after lot 

IS of unimproved ground, at extravagant prices, — his 
"appetite increasing by what it fed on" ; while the ejected 
yeomen set themselves down elsewhere, to fatten at their 
leisure upon the profits — most commonly the anticipated 
profits — of "The Scotch Novels." 

2o He was ever and anon pulled up with a momentary 
misgi\dng, — and resolved that the latest acquisition 
-should be the last, until he could get rid entirely of ''John 
Ballantjme & Co." But, after the first and more serious 
embarrassments had been overcome, John was far from 

25 continuing to hold by his patron's anxiety for the total 
abohtion of their unhappj^ copartnership. He prompted 
and enforced the idea of tr}dng other booksellers from 
time to time, instead of adhering to Constable, merely 
for the selfish purposes, — first, of facihtating the immedi- 

30 ate discount of bills ; — secondly, of further perplexing 
Scott's affairs, the entire disentanglement of which would 
have been, as he fancied, prejudicial to his o^vn personal 
importance. 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 125 

It was resolved, accordingly, to offer the risk and half 
profits of the first edition of another new novel — or rather- 
collection of novels — to Mr. IVIurraj^ of Albemarle Street, 
and Mr. Blackwood, who was then Murray's agent in 
Scotland; but it was at the same time resolved, partly s 
because Scott wished to trj^ another experiment on the 
pubhc sagacity, but parth^ also, no question, from the 
wish to spare Constable's feelings, that the title-page of 
the "Tales of mj' Landlord" should not bear the magical 
words ''by the Author of Waverley." The facihty withio 
which both Murray and Blackwood embraced such a pro- 
posal, as no untried novelist, being sane, could have dreamt 
of hazarding, shews that neither of them had any doubt 
as to the identity" of the author. They both considered 
the withholding of the avowal on the forthcoming title- 15 
page as hkely to check verj^ much the first success of the 
book; but they were both eager to prevent Constable's 
acquiring a sort of prescriptive right to pubhsh for the 
unrivalled novelist, and agreed to all the terms, including 
a considerable burden of the endless ''back-stock." 20 

Scott's intention originally was to give in the four 
volumes as many tales, each having its scene laid in a 
different province of Scotland ; but this scheme was soon 
abandoned : and the series included onh^ the two stories 
of the Black Dwarf and Old Mortality. On the first of 25 
December, the Tales appeared, and notwithstanding the 
silence of the title-page, the change of pubhshers, and 
the attempt which had certainly been made to vary the 
style both of delineation and of language, all doubts 
whether they were or were not from the same hand with 30 
Waverley had worn themselves out before the lapse of 
a week. On the 14th, the London pubhsher was unable 
to suppress his exultation, and addressed to Scott himself 



126 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

a letter concluding in these words: — ''Heber says there 
are only two men in the world — Walter Scott and Lord 
Byron. Between you, you have given existence to a 
THIRD — ever your faithful servant, John Murray.^' To 
sthis cordial effusion, Scott returned a dexterous answer. 
It was necessary, since he had resolved against compro- 
mising his incognito, that he should be prepared not only 
to repel the impertinent curiosity of strangers, but to 
evade the proffered congratulations of overflowing kind- 

'lo ness. Witliin less than a month, the Black Dwarf and 
Old Mortality were followed by '' Harold the Dauntless, 
by the author of the Bridal of Triermain." The volume 
was published by Messrs Constable, and had, in those 
booksellers' plirase, " considerable success." It has never, 

IS however, been placed on a level with Triermain. 



CHAPTER IX 

Serious Illness — LaidlaAv settled at Kaeside and the Fer- 
gussons at Huntley Burn — New House begun — Wash- 
ington Ir\dDg — Publication of Rob Roy — and the Heart 
of Mid-Lothian — Scott in Edinburgh — 1817-1818. 

Early in 1817, he was visited, for the first time since 
his childish years, with a painful illness, which proved the 
harbinger of a series of attacks, all nearly of the same kind, 
continued at short intervals during more than two years. 
The reader has been told already how widely his habits of 5 
life when in Edinburgh differed from those of Abbotsford. 
They at all times did so to a great extent; but he had 
pushed his liberties with a most robust constitution to a 
perilous extreme while the affairs of the Ballant3''nes were 
labouring. 10 

His letters to Terrj' about this time prove sufficiently 
that, whatever pain he endured, he had no serious appre- 
hensions as to his health ; for a principal theme is the plan 
of founding a new house at Abbotsford ; and by and bye 
the details of that project wholly engross the correspond- 15 
ence. The foundation was in part laid early in the 
ensuing summer : an unfortunate feature in Scott's his- 
tory ; for he was by degrees tempted to extend his design, 
and the ultimate expense very greatly exceeded all his 
and his friends' calculations. 20 

Shortly before this time, Mr. William Laidlaw had met 
with misfortunes, which rendered it necessary for him to 
give up his farm. He was now anxiously looking about 

127 



128 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

him for some new establishment, and Scott invited him to 
occupy a house on his property, and endeavour, under his 
guidance, to make such hterary exertions as might improve 
his income. The prospect of obtaining such a neighbour 
Swas, no doubt, the more welcome to "Abbotsford and 
Kaeside," from its opening at this period of fluctuating 
health ; and Laidlaw, who had for twenty years loved and 
revered him, considered the proposal with far greater de- 
hght than the most lucrative appointment on any noble 

lo domain in the island could have afforded him. Though 
possessed of a lively and searching sagacity as to things in 
general, he had always been as to his own worldly interests 
simple as a child. His tastes and habits were all modest ; 
and when he looked forward to spending the remainder of 

IS what had not hitherto been a successful life, under the 
shadow of the genius that he had worshipped almost from 
boyhood, his gentle heart was all happiness. He surveyed 
with glistening eyes the humble cottage in which his friend 
proposed to lodge him, his wife, and his little ones, and 

20 said to himself that he should write no more sad songs on 
Forest Flitting s. 

Neither the recurring fits of cramp, nor anything else, 
could, as yet, interrupt Scott's literary industry. Before 
Whitsuntide he had made his bargain for another novel. 

25 This was at once tendered to Constable, who was delighted 
to interrupt in his turn the connection with Murray and 
Blackwood, and readily agreed to meet John Ballantyne 
at Abbotsford, where all was speedily settled. 

As to Roh Roy, the title was suggested by Constable, 

30 and he told me years afterwards the difficulty he had to get 
it adopted by the author. Constable said the name of the 
real hero would be the best possible name for the book. 
''Nay," answered Scott, ''never let me have to write up 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 129 

to a name. You well know I have generally adopted a 
title that told nothing." — The bookseller, however, per- 
severed; and after the trio had dined, these scruples 
gave way. 

By this time, the foundations of that part of the existing 5 
house of Abbotsford, which extends from the hall west- 
wards to the original court-yard, had been laid ; and Scott, 
on reaching home, found a new source of constant occupa- 
tion in watching the proceedings of his masons. He had,, 
moreover, no lack of employment further a-field, — for he lo 
was now negotiating with another neighbouring landowner 
for the purchase of an addition of more consequence than 
any he had hitherto made to his estate. In the course of 
the autumn he concluded this matter, and became, for the 
price of L. 10,000, proprietor of the lands of Toftfield, on 15 
which there had recentl}^ been erected a substantial man- 
sion-house. This circumstance offered a temptation which 
much quickened Scott's zeal for completing his arrange- 
ment. The venerable Professor Fergusson had died a 3'ear 
before ; his son Adam had been placed on half -pay ; and 20, 
Scott now saw the means of securing for himself, hence- 
forth, the immediate neighbourhood of the companion of 
his youth, and his amiable sisters. Fergusson, who had 
written from the lines of Torres Vedras° his hopes of 
finding, when the war should be over, some sheltering 25 
cottage upon the Tweed, within a walk of Abbotsford, was 
delighted to see his dreams realized ; and the family took 
up their residence next spring at the new house of Toft- 
field, on which Scott then bestowed, at the ladies' request, 
the name of Huntley Burn. 30 

A pleasant incident belongs to August 1817. Scott 
had read "the History of New York by Knickerbocker," 
shortly after its appearance in 1812; and the admirable 



130 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

humour of this early work had led him to anticipate the 
brilliant career which its author has since run. Campbell, 
being no stranger to Scott's estimation of Washington 
Irving's° genius, gave him a letter of introduction, which, 
5 halting his chaise on the high-road above Abbotsford, he 
modestly sent down to the house "with a card on which 
he had written, that he was on his way to the ruins of 
Melrose, and wished to know whether it would be agree- 
able to Mr. Scott to receive a visit from him in the course 
loof the morning." 

"The noise of my chaise," says Irving, "had disturbed 
the quiet of the establishment. Out salhed the warder 
of the castle, a black greyhound, and leaping on one of 
the blocks of stone, began a furious barking. This alarm 

IS brought out the whole garrison of dogs, all open-mouthed 
and vociferous. In a little while the lord of the castle 
himself made his appearance. I knew him at once, by 
the likenesses that had been published of him. He came 
limping up the gravel walk, aiding himself by a stout 

20 walking-staff , but moving rapidly and with vigour. By 
his side jogged along a large iron-grey staghound, of most 
grave demeanour, who took no part in the clamour of the 
canine rabble, but seemed to consider himself bound, for 
the dignity of the house, to give me a courteous reception. 

25 — Before Scott reached the gate, he called out in a hearty 
tone, welcoming me to Abbotsford, and asking news of 
Campbell. Arrived at the door of the chaise, he grasped 
me warmly by the hand : ' Come, drive down, drive down 
to the house,' said he, 'ye're just in time for breakfast, 

30 and afterwards ye shall see all the wonders of the Abbey.' 
I would have excused myself on the plea of having already 
made my breakfast. 'Hut, man,' cried he, 'a ride in the 
morning in the keen air of the Scotch hills is warrant 
enough for a second breakfast.' I was accordingly whirled 

35 to the portal of the cottage, and in a few moments found 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT Vol 

myself seated at the breakfast table. There was no one 
present but the family, which consisted of Mrs. Scott ; 
her eldest daughter, Sophia, then a fine girl about seven- 
teen ; Miss Ann Scott, two or three years younger ; Walter, 
a well-grown stripling ; and Charles, a lively boy, eleven 5 
or twelve years of age. — I soon felt myself quite at home, 
and my heart in a glow, with the cordial welcome I ex- 
perienced. I had thought to make a mere morning visit, 
but found I was not to be let off so lightly. 'You must 
not think our neighbourhood is to be read in a morning k 
like a newspaper,' said Scott; 'it takes several daj-s of 
study for an observant traveller, that has a relish for auld- 
world trumperj'. After breakfast you shall make your 
visit to Melrose Abbey ; I shall not be able to accompany 
you, as I have some household affairs to attend to ; but i; 
I will put you in charge of my son Charles, who is very 
learned in all things touching the old ruin and the neigh- 
bourhood it stands in ; and he and my friend Johnnie 
Bower, will tell you the whole truth about it, with a great 
deal more that you are not called upon to believe, unless 2z 
you be a true and nothing-doubting antiquary. When you 
come back, I'll take you out on a ramble about the neigh- 
bourhood. To-morrow we ^\^ll take a look at the Yarrow, 
and the next day we will drive over to Dryburgh Abbey, 
which is a fine old ruin, well worth your seeing.' — In a 25 
word, before Scott had got through mth his plan, I found 
myself committed for a visit of several days, and it seemed 
as if a little realm of romance was suddenly open before 
me." 



" On the follo^^'ing morning the sun darted his beams from 
over the hills through the low lattice of my window. I rose 30 
at an early hour, and looked out between the branches of 
eghntine which overhung the casement. To my surprise, 
Scott was already up, and forth, seated on a fragment of 
stone, and chatting \sdth the workmen employed in the new 



132 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

building. I had supposed, after the time he had wasted 
upon me yesterday, he would be closely occupied this 
morning : but he appeared like a man of leisure, who 
had nothing to do but bask in the sunshine and amuse 
5 himself. I soon dressed myself and joined him. He talked 
about his proposed plans of Abbotsford : happy would it 
have been for him could he have contented himself with 
his dehghtful little vine-covered cottage, and the simple, 
yet hearty and hospitable, style in which he lived at the 
lo time of my visit." 

These lines to the elder Ballantyne are without date. 

They accompanied, no doubt, the last proof-sheet of Rob 

Roy, and were therefore in all probability written about 

ten days before the 31st of December 1817 — on which 

IS day the novel was published. 

"With great joy 
I send you Roy. 
'Twas a tough job, 
But we're done with Rob." 

2o The novel had indeed been "a tough job" — for lightly 
and airily as it reads, the author had struggled almost 
throughout with the pains of cramp or the lassitude of 
opium. 

Rob and his wife. Bailie Jarvie and his housekeeper, 

25 Die Vernon and Rashleigh Osbaldistone — these boldly 
drawn and happily contrasted personages — were wel- 
comed as warmly as the most fortunate of their prede- 
cessors. Constable's resolution to begin with an edition 
of 10,000, proved to have been as sagacious as brave; 

30 for within a fortnight a second 3000 was called for. 

Scott, however, had not waited for this new burst of 
applause. As soon as he came within view of the comple- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 133 

tion of Rob Roy, he desired Joliii Ballantyne to propose 
to Constable a second series of the Tales of mj^ Landlord, 
to be comprised, like the first, in four volumes, and ready 
for pubUcation by ''the King's birth-day"; that is, the 
4th of June 1818. ''I have hungered and thirsted," he 5 
wrote, ''to see the end of those shabby borrowings among 
friends; they have all been wiped out except the good 
Duke's L.4000 — and I will not suffer either new offers 
of land or anything else to come in the way of that clear- 
ance. I expect that you will be able to arrange this resur- 10 
rectionof Jeclediah°, so that L.oOOO shall be at my order." 
Mr. Rigdum used to glor}- in recounting that he ac- 
quitted himself on this occasion wath a species of dexterity 
not contemplated in his commission. He well knew how 
sorely Constable had been wounded by seeing the first 15 
Tales of Jedediah published by Murra}^ and Black- 
wood — and that the utmost success of Rob Roy would 
only double his anxiety to keep them out of the field. 
When, therefore, the haughty but trembling bookseller 
signified his earnest hope that the second Tales of my 20 
Landlord were destined to come out under the same 
auspices with Rob Roj^, the plenipotentiary answered 
with an air of deep regret, that he feared it would be im- . 
possible for the author to dispose of the work — unless 
to publishers who should agree to take mth it the whole of 25 
1 the remaining stock of "John Ballantj^ne & Co."; and 
Constable, pertinaciously as he had stood out against many 
more modest propositions of this nature, was so worked 
upon by his jealous feelings, that his resolution at once 
gave wa3^ He agreed on the instant to do all that John 30 
seemed to shrink from asking — and at one sweep cleared 
the Augean stable in Hanover Street of unsaleable rub- 
bish to the amount of L.5270 ! I am assured by liis sur- 



134 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

viving partner, that when he had finally redisposed of the 
stock, he found himself a loser by fully two-thirds of this 
sum. Burthened with this heavy condition, the agree- 
ment for the sale of 10,000 copies of the embryo series was 

5 signed before the end of November 1817 ; and on the 7th 

January 1818, Scott wrote to his noble friend of Buccleuch, 

— ''I have the great pleasure of enclosing the discharged 

bond which your Grace stood engaged in on my account." 

The time now approached when a Commission to exam- 

lo ine the Crown-room in the Castle of Edinburgh, which 
had sprung from one of Scott's conversations with the 
Prince Regent in 1815, was at length to be acted upon ; 
and the result was the discovery of the long lost regalia 
of Scotland. Of the official proceedings of the 4th Feb. 

15 1818, the reader has a full and particular account in an 
Essay which Scott penned shortly afterwards ; but I may 
add a little incident of the 5th. He and several of his 
brother Commissioners then revisited the Castle, accom- 
panied by some of the ladies of their families. His daugh- 

2o ter Sophia told me that her father's conversation had 
worked her feelings up to such a pitch, that when the lid 
was again removed, she nearly fainted, and drew back 
from the circle. As she was retiring, she was startled by 
his voice exclaiming, in a tone of the deepest emotion, 

25 "something between anger and despair," as she expressed 
it, "By G — , No !" One of the Commissioners, not quite 
entering into the solemnity with which Scott regarded 
this business, had it seems made a sort of motion as if he 
meant to put the crown on the head of one of the 3'oung 

30 ladies near him, but the voice and aspect of the Poet were 
more than sufficient to make the worthy gentleman under- 
stand his error ; and respecting the enthusiasm with which 
he had not been taught to sympathize, he laid down the 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 135 

ancient diadem with an air of painful embarrassment. 
Scott whispered, ''Pray forgive me"; and turning round 
at the moment, observed his daughter deadly pale, and 
leaning by the door. He immediately drew her out of 
the room, and when the air had somewhat recovered her, 5 
walked with her across the Mound to Castle Street. "He 
never spoke all the way home," she said, ''but every now 
and then I felt his arm tremble; and from that time I 
fancied he began to treat me more like a woman than a 
child. I thought he hked me better, too, than he had 10 
ever done before." 

At this moment, his position, take it for all in all, was, 
I am inclined to believe, what no other man had ever 
won for himself b}^ the \)Q\\ alone. His works were the 
daily food, not only of his countrymen, but of all educated 15 
Europe. His society was courted by whatever England 
could shew of eminence. Station, power, wealth, beauty, 
and genius, strove with each other in everj^ demonstration 
of respect and worship, and — a few political fanatics and 
envious poetasters apart — wherever he appeared in town 20 
or country, whoever had Scotch blood in him, "gentle 
or simple," felt it move more rapidly through his veins 
when he was in the presence of Scott. To descend to 
what many looked on as higher things, he considered 
himself, and was considered by all about him, as rapidly 25 
consolidating a large fortune : — the annual profits of his 
novels alone had, for several years, been not less than 
£10,000; his domains were daily increased — his castle 
was rising — and perhaps few doubted that ere long he 
might receive from the just favour of his Prince some dis- 30 
tinction in the way of external rank, such as had seldom 
before been dreamt of as the possible consequences of a 
mere literary celebrity. It was about this time that the 



136 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

compiler of these pages first had the opportunity^ of observ- 
ing the plain easy modesty which had survived the many 
temptations of such a career; and the kindness of heart 
pervading, in all circumstances, his gentle deportment, 
S which made him the rare, perhaps the solitary-, example 
of a man signally elevated from humble beginnings, and 
loved more and more by his earliest friends and connexions, 
in proportion as he had fixed on himself the homage of the 
great and the wonder of the world. 

lo He at this time occupied as his den a small square room, 
behind the dining parlour in Castle Street. It had but a 
single Venetian window, opening on a patch of turf not 
much larger than itself, and the aspect of the place was on 
the whole sombrous. The wahs were entirely clothed with 

15 books ; most of them folios and quartos, and all in that 
complete state of repair which at a glance reveals a tinge 
of bibliomania. A dozen volumes or so, needful for imme- 
diate purposes of reference, were placed close by him on a 
small moveable frame — something like a dumb-waiter. 

20 All the rest were in their proper niches, and wherever a 
volume had been lent, its room was occupied by a wooden 
block of the same size, having a card with the name of the 
borrower and date of the loan, tacked on its front. The 
old bindings had obviously been retouched and regilt in 

25 the most approved manner ; the new, when the books were 
of any mark, were rich, but never gaud}^ — a large pro- 
portion of blue morocco — all stamped with his device of 
the portcullis, and its motto, clausus tutus ero° — being an 
anagram of his name in Latin. Every case and shelf was 

30 accurately lettered, and the works arranged systematical!}^ ; 
history and biography on one side — poetry and the drama 
on another — law books and dictionaries behind his own 
chair. The only table was a massive piece of furniture 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 137 

which he had had constructed on the model of one at 
Rokeby ; with a desk and all its appurtenances on either 
side, that an amanuensis might work opposite to him 
when he chose ; and with small tiers of drawers, reaching 
all round to the floor. The top displayed a goodly array s 
of session papers, and on the desk below were, besides the 
MS. at which he was working, sundry parcels of letters, 
proof-sheets, and so forth, all neatly done up with red 
tape. His own writing apparatus was a very handsome 
old box, richly carved, hned with crimson velvet, and con- lo 
taining ink-bottles, taper-stand, &c. in silver — the whole 
in such order that it might have come from the silver- 
smith's window half an hour before. Besides his own huge 
elbow-chair, there were but two others in the room, and 
one of these seemed, from its position, to be reserved 15 
exclusively for the amanuensis. I observed, during the 
first evening I spent with, him in this sanctum, that while 
he talked, his hands were hardly ever idle ; sometimes he 
folded letter-covers — sometimes he tmsted paper into 
matches, performing both tasks with great mechanical 20 
expertness and nicety ; and when there was no loose paper 
fit to be so dealt with, he snapped his fingers, and the 
noble Alaida aroused himself from his lair on the hearth- 
rug, and laid his head across his master's knees, to be 
caressed and fondled. The room had no space for pic- 25 
tures except one, a portrait of Claverhouse,° which hung 
over the chimneypiece, with a Highland target on either 
side, and broadswords and dirks (each having its own 
story) disposed star-fashion round them. A few green 
tin-boxes, such as sohcitors keep title-deeds in, were piled 30 
over each other on one side of the window ; and on the top 
of these lay a fox's tail, mounted on an antique silver 
handle, wherewith, as often as he had occasion to take down 



138 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

a book, he gently brushed the dust off the upper leaves 
before opening it. I think I have mentioned all the furni- 
ture of the room except a sort of ladder, low, broad, well 
carpeted, and strongly guarded with oaken rails, by which 

she helped himself to books from his higher shelves. On 
the top step of this convenience, Hinse of Hinsfeldt (so 
called from one of the German Kinder-mdrchen°) , a vener- 
able tom-cat, fat and sleek, and no longer very locomotive, 
usually lay watching the proceedings of his master and 

loMaida with an air of dignified equanimity; but when 
Maida chose to leave the party, he signified his inchnations 
by thumping the door with his huge paw, as violently as 
ever a fashionable footman handled a knocker in Grosvenor 
Square ; the Sheriff rose and opened it for him with cour- 

15 teous alacrity, — and then Hinse came down purring from 
his perch, and mounted guard by the footstool, vice Maida 
absent upon furlough. Whatever discourse might be 
passing, was broken every now and then by some affec- 
tionate apostrophe to these four-footed friends. He said 

20 they understood everything he said to them — and I 
believe they did understand a great deal of it. But at 
all events, dogs and cats, like children, have some infalHble 
tact for discovering at once who is, and who is not, really 
fond of their company ; and I venture to say, Scott w^as 

25 never five minutes in any room before the httle pets of 
the family, whether dumb or lisping, had found out his 
kindness for all their generation. 

Scott managed to give and receive great dinners, at 
least as often as any other private gentleman in Edinburgh ; 

30 but he very rarely accompanied his wife and daughters 
to the evening assemblies, which commonly ensued under 
other roofs — for early to rise, unless in the case of spare- 
fed anchorites, takes for granted early to bed. When he 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 139 

iiad no dinner engagement, he frequently gave a few hours 
to the theatre ; but still more frequently, when the weather 
was fine, and still more, I believe, to his own satisfaction, 
he drove out with some of his family, or a single friend, in 
an open carriage. 5 

Whatever might happen on the other evenings of the 
week, he always dined at home on Sunday, and usually 
some few friends were then with him, but never any per- 
son ^^dth whom he stood on ceremony. These were, it 
may be readily supposed, the most agreeable of his enter- lo 
tainments. He came into the room rubbing his hands, 
his face bright and gleesome, like a boy arriving at liome 
for the holida3^s, his Peppers and Mustards gambolling 
about his heels, and even the statel}^ Maida grinning and 
wagging his tail in sympathy. 15 

After devoting several interesting pages to a discussion of 
the characters of Constable and the Ballantyne brothers, 
Lockhart continues: Why did Scott persist in mixing up 
all his most important concerns with these Ballantynes ? 
The reader of these pages will have all mj^ materials for 20 
an answer ; but in the meantime let it suffice to say, that 
he was the most patient, long-suffering, affectionate, and 
charitable of mankind; that in the case of both the 
brothers he could count, after all, on a sincerely, nay, a 
passionately devoted attachment to his person ; that, 25 
with the greatest of human beings, use is an all but un- 
conquerable power; and that he who so loftily tossed 
aside the seemingly most dangerous assaults of flattery, 
the blancUshment of dames, the condescension of princes, 
the enthusiasm of crowds — had still his weak point, upon 30 
which two or three humble besiegers, and one unwearied, 
though most frivolous underminer, well knew how to di- 
rect their approaches. It was a favourite saw of his own. 



140 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

that the wisest of our race often reserve the average stock 
of folly to be all expended upon some one flagrant 
absurdity. 

I alluded to James Ballantyne's reading of the famous 
S scene in Richmond Park. According to Scott's original 
intention, the second series of Jedediah was to have in- 
cluded two tales; but his Jeanie Deans soon grew so on 
his fancy as to make this impossible; and the Heart of 
Mid-Lothian alone occupied the four volumes which ap- 

lo peared in June 1818, and were at once placed by acclama- 
tion in the foremost rank of his writings. 

From the choice of localities, and the splendid blazoning 
of tragical circumstances that had left the strongest im- 
pression on the memory and imagination of every inhabit- 

15 ant, the reception of this tale in Edinburgh was a scene 
of all-engrossing enthusiasm, such as I never witnessed 
there on the appearance of any other literary novelty. 
But the admiration and delight were the same all over 
Scotland. Never before had he seized such really noble 

2o features of the national character -as were canonized in 
the person of his homely heroine : no art had ever devised 
a happier running contrast than that of her and her sister, 
or interwoven a portraiture of lowly manners and simple 
virtues, with more graceful delineations of polished life, 

25 or with bolder shadows of terror, guilt, crime, remorse, 
madness, and all the agony of the passions. 



CHAPTER X 

Sketches of Abbotsford — Illness and Domestic Afflictions 
— The Bride of Lammermoor — The Legend of Mont- 
rose — Ivanhoe — 1818-1819. 

The 12th of July [1818] restored Scott as usual to the 
supervision of his trees and carpenters ; but he had already 
told the Ballantynes, that the story which he had found 
it impossible to include in the recent series should be 
forthwith taken up as the opening one of a third ; and 5 
instructed John to embrace the first favourable oppor- 
tunity' of offering Constable the pubhcation of this, on 
the footing of 10,000 copies again forming the first edition ; 
but now at length ^\'ithout any more stipulations connected 
with the ''old stock." 10 

One of his \dsitors of September was Mr. R. Cadell, 
who was now in all the secrets of his father-in-law and 
partner Constable ; and obser\ing how his host was har- 
assed with lion-hunters, and what a number of hours 
he spent daily in the company of his work-people, he ex- 15 
pressed, during one of their walks, his wonder that Scott 
should ever be able to write books at all while in the coun- 
try. "I know," he said, ''that you contrive to get a few 
hours in your own room, and that may do for the mere 
pen-work; but when is it that you think?" — "Oh," 20 
said Scott, "I he simmering over things for an hour or so 
before I get up — and there's the time I am dressing to 
overhaul my half-sleeping, half-waking, projet de chapitre 
— and when I get the paper l^efcre me, it commonly runs 

141 



142 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

off pretty easily. Besides, I often take a dose in the 
plantations, and while Tom marks out a dyke or a drain, 
as I have directed, one's fancy may be running its ain riggs 
in some other world." 

5 Towards the end of this year Scott received from Lord 
Sidmouth the formal announcement of the Prince Regent's 
desire (which had been privately communicated some 
months earlier through the Lord Chief-Commissioner 
Adam) to confer on him the rank of Baronet. When he 

lo first heard of the Regent's intention, he signified consider- 
able hesitation; for it had not escaped his observation 
that such airy sounds, however, modestly people may be 
disposed to estimate them, are apt to entail in the upshot 
additional cost upon their way of living, and to affect 

15 accordingly the plastic fancies, feehngs, and habits of 
their children. But Lord Sidmouth's letter happened 
to reach him a few months after he had heard of the sudden 
death of Charles Carpenter, who had bequeathed the 
reversion of his fortune to his sister's family; and this 

20 circumstance disposed Scott to waive his scruples, chiefly 
with a view to the professional advantage of his eldest son, 
who had by this time fixed on the life of a soldier. As is 
usually the case, the estimate of Mr. Carpenter's property 
transmitted on his death to England proved to have been 

25 an exaggerated one; and at any rate no one of Scott's 
children lived to receive any benefit from the bequest. 

His health prevented him from going up to the fountain 
of honour for more than a year. Meantime his building 
and other operations continued to tax his resources more 

30 than he had calculated upon; and he now completed 
an important negotiation with Constable, who agreed 
to give him bonds for L. 12,000 in consideration of all 
his existing copyrights ; namely, whatever shares had been 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 143 

reserved to him in the earlier poems, and the whole prop- 
erty in his novels down to the third series of Tales of my 
Landlord inclusive. The deed included a clause by 
which Constable was to forfeit L.2000 if he ever ''divulged 
the name of the Author of Waverley during the life s 
of the said Walter Scott, Esq." 

He had now begun in earnest his Bride of Lammer- 
moor, and his amanuenses were William Laidlaw and 
John Ballantyne ; — of whom he preferred the latter, 
when he could be at Abbotsford, on account of the superior lo 
rapidity of his pen ; and also because John kept his pen to 
the paper without interruption, and, though with many 
an arch twinkle in his eyes, and now and then an audible 
smack of his hps, had resolution to work on Hke a well- 
trained clerk ; whereas good Laidlaw entered with such 15 
keen zest into the interest of the story as it flowed from 
the author's lips, that he could not suppress exclamations 
of surprise and deUght — "Gude keep us aM — the like 
o' that — eh sirs ! eh sirs ! " — and so forth — which did 
not promote despatch. I have often, however, in the 20 
sequel, heard both these secretaries describe the astonish- 
ment with which they were equally affected when Scott 
began this experiment. The affectionate Laidlaw be- 
seeching him to stop dictating, when his audible suffering 
filled every pause, "Nay, Wilhe," he answered, ''only 25 
see that the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the cry 
as well as all the wool to ourselves ; but as to gi\ing over 
work, that can only be when I am in woolen." John 
Ballantyne told me, that after the first day, he always 
took care to have a dozen of pens made before he seated 30 
himself opposite to the sofa on which Scott lay, and that 
though he often turned himself on his pillow with a groan 
of torment, he usually continued the sentence in the same 



144 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

breath. But when dialogue of peculiar animation was 
in progress, spirit seemed to triumph altogether over 
matter — he arose from his couch and walked up and 
down the room, raising and lowering his voice, and as it 
5 were acting the parts. It was in this fashion that Scott 
produced the far greater portion of The Bride of Lammer- 
moor — the whole of the Legend of Montrose — 
and almost the whole of Ivanhoe. Yet when his 
health was fairly reestablished, he disdained to avail 

lo himself of the power of dictation, which he had thus put 
to the sharpest test, but resumed, and for many years 
resolutely adhered to, the old plan of writing everything 
with his own hand. When I once, sometim.e afterwards, 
expressed my surprise that he did not consult his ease, 

15 and spare his eye-sight at all events, by occasionally 
dictating, he answered — "I should as soon think of get- 
ting into a sedan-chair while I can use my legs." 

On the 11th of May he returned to Edinburgh, and was 
present at the opening of the Court; when all who saw 

20 him were as much struck as I had been at Abbotsf ord with 
the change in his appearance. He was unable to persist 
in attendance at the Clerks' table — for several weeks 
afterwards I think he seldom if ever attempted it; and 
I well remember that, when the Bride of Lammermoor 

25 and Legend of Montrose at length came out (which was 
on the 10th of June), he was known to be confined to bed, 
and the book was received amidst the deep general im- 
pression that we should see no more of that parentage. 
I must not forget to set down what Sophia Scott after- 

30 wards told me of her father's conduct upon one night in 
June, when he really did despair of himself. He then 
called his children about his bed, and took leave of them 
with solemn tenderness. After giving them, one by one, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 145 

such advice as suited their j^ears and characters, he added, 
— ''For myself, my dears, I am unconscious of ever having 
done any man an injury, or omitted any fair opportunitj^ 
of doing any man a benefit. I well know that no human 
life can appear otherwise than weak and filthy in the ej^es 5 
of God : but I rely on the merits and intercession of our 
Redeemer." He then laid his hand on their heads, and 
said — '' God bless you ! Live so that you may all hope to 
meet each other in a better place hereafter. And now 
leave me, that I may turn my face to the wall." They 10 
obeyed him ; but he presently fell into a deep sleep ; and 
when he awoke from it after many hours, the crisis of ex- 
treme danger was felt by himself, and pronounced by his 
physician, to have been overcome. 

The Tales of the Third Series would have been read 15 
with indulgence, had they needed it ; for the painful cir- 
cumstances under which they must have been produced 
were in part known wherever an English newspaper made 
its way ; but I believe that, except in typical errors, from 
the author's inabihty to correct proof-sheets, no one ever 20 
affected to perceive in either work the slightest symptom 
of his malady. 

These volumes, as w^as mentioned, came out before the 
middle of June ; and though at that moment he was un- 
able to quit his room, he did not hesitate to make all arrange- 25 
ments as to another romance. Nay, though his condi- 
tion still required an amanuensis, he had advanced con- 
siderably in the new work before the Session closed in 
July. That he felt much more security as to his health 
bj' that time, must be inferred from his then allowing his 30 
son Walter to proceed to Ireland to join the 18th regi- 
ment of Hussars. The Cornet was only in the eighteenth 
year of his age ; and the fashion of education in Scotland 



146 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

is such, that he had scarcely ever slept a night under a 
different roof from his parents, until this separation oc- 
curred. The parting was a painful one: but Scott's 
ambition centred in the heir of his name, and instead of 

5 fruitless pinings and lamentings, he henceforth made it 
his constant business to keep up such a frank correspond- 
ence with the young man as might enable himself to exert 
over him, when at a distance, the gentle influence of kind- 
ness, experience, and wisdom. His manly kindness to 

lohis boy, whether he is expressing approbation or censure 
of his conduct, is a model for the parent ; and his practi- 
cal wisdom was of that liberal order, based on such com- 
prehensive views of man and the world, that I am per- 
suaded it will often be found available to the circumstances 

15 of their own various cases, by young men of whatever 
station or profession. 

On the 18th of December, appeared his Ivanhoe. 
It was received throughout England with a more clamor- 
ous delight than any of the Scotch novels had been, The 

20 volumes (three in number) were now, for the first time, 
of the post 8vo form, with a finer paper than hitherto, 
the press-work much more elegant, and the price accord- 
ingh^ raised from eight shillings the volume to ten; yet 
the copies sold in this original shape were twelve thousand. 

25 The reader has already been told that Scott dictated the 
greater part of this romance. The portion of the MS. 
which is his own, appears, however, not only as well and 
firmly executed as that of any of the Tales of my Land- 
lord, but distinguished by having still fewer erasures 

30 and interlineations, and also by being in a smaller hand. 
The fragment is beautiful to look at — many pages to- 
gether without one alteration. It is, I suppose, super- 
fluous to add, that in no instance did Scott re-write his 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 147 

prose before sending it to the press. Whatever may have 
been the case with his poetr}^, the world uniformly received 
the prima cura° of the novelist. 

As a work of art, Ivanhoe is perhaps the first of all 
Scott's efforts, whether in prose or in verse ; nor have the 5 
strength and splendour of his imagination been displayed 
to higher advantage than in some of the scenes of this ro- 
mance. But I believe that no reader who is capable of 
thoroughly comprehending the author's Scotch character 
and Scotch dialogue will ever place even Ivanhoe, as a 10 
work of genius, on the same level with Waverley, Guy 
Mannering, or the Heart of Mid-Lothian. 

The introduction of the charming Jewess and her father 
originated, I find, in a conversation that Scott held with 
his friend Skene during the severest season of his bodily 15 
sufferings in the early part of this 3^ear. "Mr. Skene," 
says that gentleman's wife, ''sitting by his bedside, and 
trjdng to amuse him as well as he could in the intervals 
of pain, happened to get on the subject of the Jews, as 
he had observed them when he spent some time in Ger- 20 
many in his youth. Their situation had naturally made 
a strong impression ; for in those days they retained their 
own dress and manners entire, and were treated with 
considerable austerity by their Christian neighbours, being 
still locked up at night in their own quarter by great gates ; 25 
and ]\Ir. Skene, partly in seriousness, but partly from the 
mere wish to turn his mind at the moment upon some- 
thing that might occupy and divert it, suggested that a 
group of Jews would be an interesting feature if he could 
contrive to bring them into his next novel." Upon the 30 
appearance of Ivanhoe, he reminded Mr. Skene of this 
conversation, and said, ''You will find this book owes 
not a httle to your German reminiscences." 



148 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

By the way, before Ivanhoe made its appearance, I had 
myself been formally admitted to the author's secret ; but 
had he favoured me with no such confidence, it would have 
been impossible for me to doubt that I had been present 
5 some months before at the conversation which suggested, 
and indeed supplied all the materials of, one of its most 
amusing chapters. I allude to that in which our Saxon 
terms for animals in the field, and our Norman equivalents 
for them as they appear on the table, and so on, are ex- 

lo plained and commented on. All this Scott owed to the 
after-dinner talk one day in Castle Street of his old friend 
Mr. William Clerk, — who, among other elegant pursuits, 
has cultivated the science of philology very deeply. 

About the middle of February — it having been ere 

IS that time arranged that I should marry his eldest daughter 
in the course of the spring, — I accompanied him and part 
of his family on one of those flying \dsits to Abbotsford, 
with which he often indulged himself on a Saturday during 
term. As we proceeded, he talked without reserve of the 

20 novel of the Monastery, of wliich he had the first volume 
with him : and mentioned, what he had probably forgotten 
when he wrote the Introduction of 1830, that a good 
deal of that volume had been composed before he concluded 
Ivanhoe. ''It was a relief," he said, "to interlay the 

25 scenery most familiar to me, with the strange world for 
which I had to draw so much on imagination." 

In giving some of the incidents of this visit to Abbotsford, 
Lockhart sets forth Tom Pur die, Scott's faithful servant. 
He continues: I believe Scott has somewhere expressed in 

30 print his satisfaction that, among all the changes of our 
manners, the ancient freedom of personal intercourse 
may still be indulged between a master and an out-of- 
doors' servant; but in truth he kept by the old fashion 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 149 

even with domestic servants, to an extent which I have 
hardly seen practised by any other gentleman. He con- 
versed with his coachman if he sat by him, as he often 
did on the box — with his footman, if he happened to 
be in the rumble; and when there was any very j^omigs 
lad in the household, he held it a point of duty to see that 
his employments were so arranged as to leave time for 
advancing his education, made him bring his copy-book 
once a-week to the library, and examined him as to all 
that he was doing. Indeed he did not confine this hu- lo 
manity to his own people. Any steady servant of a friend 
of his was soon considered as a sort of friend too, and was 
sure to have a kind little colloquy to himself at coming 
and going. With all this, Scott was a very rigid enforcer 
of discipline — contrived to make it thoroughly under- 15 
stood by all about him, that they must do their part by 
him as he did his by them ; and the result was happy. I 
never knew anj^ man so well served as he was — so care- 
fully, so respectfully, and so silently ; and I cannot help 
doubting if in any department of human operations real 20 
kindness ever compromised real dignit3^ 



CHAPTER XI 

Scott's Baronetcy — Hospitalities and Sports at Abbotsford 
— Publication of the Monastery — The Abbot — and 
Kenilworth ~ 1820. 

The novel of The Monastery was published in the be- 
ginning of March 1820. It appeared not in the post 8vo 
form of Ivanhoe, but in 3 vols. 12mo, like the earlier 
works of the series. In fact, a few sheets of The Monas- 

5 tery had been printed before Scott agreed to let Ivan- 
hoe have ''By the Author of Waverley" on its title-page ; 
and the different shapes of the two books belonged to the 
abortive scheme of passing off "Mr. Laurence Temple- 
ton" as a hitherto unheard of candidate for hterary success. 

lo At the rising of his Court on the 12th, he proceeded 
to London, for the purpose of receiving his baronetcy, 
which 'he had been prevented from doing in the spring of 
the preceding year by illness, and again at Christmas by 
family afflictions. The Prince Regent was now King. 

15 The baronetcy was conferred on him, not in conse- 
quence of any Ministerial suggestion, but by the King 
personally, and of his own unsolicited motion ; and when 
the poet kissed his hand, he said to him — "I shall always 
reflect with pleasure on Sir Walter Scott's having been 

2o the first creation of my reign." 

The Gazette announcing this was dated March 30, 1820 ; 
and the Baronet, as soon afterwards as he could get away, 
set out on his return to the North; for he had such re- 

150 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 151 

spect for the ancient prejudice (a classical as well as a 
Scottish one) against marrying in May, that he was anx- 
ious to have the ceremony in which his daughter was con- 
cerned, over before that unlucky month should commence. 
He reached Edinburgh late in April, and on the 29th of 5 
that month he gave me the hand of his daughter Sophia. 
The wedding, more Scotico° took place in the evening ; 
and adhering on all such occasions to ancient modes of 
observance with the same punctiliousness which he men- 
tions as distinguishing his worthy father, he gave a jolly 10 
supper afterwards to all the friends and connexions of 
the young couple. 

In May 1820, he received from both the English Uni- 
versities the highest comphment which it was in their 
power to offer him. The Vice-Chancellors of Oxford and 15 
Cambridge communicated to him, in the same week, their 
request that he would attend at the approaching Comme- 
morations, and accept the honorary degree of Doctor in 
Civil Law. It was impossible for him to leave Scotland 
again in time ; and on various subsequent renewals of the 20 
same flattering proposition from either body, he was pre- 
vented by similar circumstances from availing himself of 
their distinguished kindness. 

About the middle of August, my wife and I went to 
Abbotsford ; and we remained there for several weeks, 25 
during which I became familiarized to Sir Walter Scott's 
mode of existence in the country. The humblest person 
who stayed merely for a short visit, must have departed 
with the impression that what he witnessed was an occa- 
sional variety; that Scott's courtesy prompted him to 30 
break in upon his habits when he had a stranger to amuse ; 
but that it was physically impossible that the man who 
was writing the Waverley romances at the rate of 



152 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

nearly twelve volumes in the year, could continue, week 
after week, and month after month, to devote all but a 
hardly perceptible fraction of his mornings to out-of- 
doors' occupations, and the whole of his evenings to the 
5 entertainment of a constantly varying circle of guests. 
I have seen Sir Humphrey Davy in many places, and 
in company of many different descriptions ; but never to 
such advantage as at Abbotsford. His host and he de- 
lighted in each other, and the modesty of their mutual 

lo admiration was a memorable spectacle. Each strove to 
make the other talk — and they did so in turn more 
charmingly than I ever heard either on any other occa- 
sion whatsoever. I remember William Laidlaw whisper- 
ing to me, one night, when their ''rapt talk" had kept 

IS the circle round the fire until long after the usual bedtime 
of Abbotsford — ''Gude preserve us ! this is a very superior 
occasion! Eh, sirs!" he added, cocking his eye like a 
bird, ''I wonder if Shakspeare and Bacon ever met to 
screw ilk other up?" 

20 Since I have touched on the subject of Sir Walter's 
autumnal diversions in these his latter years, I may as well 
notice here two annual festivals, when sport was made 
his pretext for assembling his rural neighbours about him 
— days eagerly anticipated, and fondly remembered by 

25 many. One was a solemn bout of salmon-fishing for the 
neighbouring gentry and their families. 

The other ''superior occasion" came later in the season ; 
the 28th of October, the birthday of Sir Walter's eldest 
son, was, I think, that usually selected for the Abbotsford 

so Hunt. This was a coursing-field on a large scale, includ- 
ing, with as many of the young gentry as pleased to attend, 
all Scott's personal favourites among the yeomen and 
farmers of the surrounding country. 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 153 

Thiis Lockhart concludes his account of the breaking off of 
the revels that followed the Hunt: How they all contrived 
to get home in safety, Heaven only knows — but I never 
heard of any serious accident except upon one occasion, 
when James Hogg made a bet at starting that he would 5 
leap over his wall-eyed pony as she stood, and broke his 
nose in this experiment of "o'ervaulting ambition." ° 
One comely goodwife, far off among the hills, amused Sir 
Walter by telling him, the next time he passed her home- 
stead after one of these jolly doings, what her husband's 10 
first words were when he alighted at his own door — " Aihe, 
my woman, I'm ready for my bed — and oh lass (he gal- 
lantly added), I wish I could sleep for a tow mont, for 
there's only ae thing in this warld worth living for, and 
that's the Abbotsford hunt !" 15 

In September 1820 appeared The Abbot — the con- 
tinuation, to a certain extent, of The Monastery, of 
which I barely mentioned the publication under the pre- 
ceding March. I have nothing of any consequence to 
add to the information which the Introduction of 1830 20 
affords us respecting the composition and fate of the former 
of these novels. It was considered as a failure — the first 
of the series on which any such sentence was pronounced. 
Sir Walter himself thought well of The Abbot when he 
had finished it, and whatever ground he had been supposed 25 
to lose in The Monastery, part at least of it was regained 
by this tale, and especially by its most graceful and pa- 
thetic portraiture of Mary Stuart. 

For reasons connected with the affairs of the Ballantj^nes, 
Messrs Longman published the first edition of the Mon-30 
astery; and similar circumstances induced Sir Walter 
to associate this house with that of Constable in the suc- 
ceeding novel. Constable disliked its 'title, and would 



154 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

fain have had The Nunnery instead: but Scott stuck 
to his Abbot. The bookseller grumbled a httle, but 
was soothed by the author's reception of his request that 
Queen Elizabeth might be brought into the field in his 

5 next romance, as a companion to the Mary Stuart of The 
Abbot. Scott would not indeed indulge him with the 
choice of the particular period of Ehzabeth's reign, indi- 
cated in the proposed title of The Armada ; but ex- 
pressed his willingness to take up his own old favourite 

lo legend of Meikle's ballad. He wished to call the novel, 
like the ballad, Cumnor-Hall, but in further deference 
to Constable's wishes, substituted ''Kenil worth." John 
Ballantyne objected to this title, and told Constable the 
result would be ''something worthy of the kennel" ; but 

15 Constable had all reason to be satisfied with the child of 
his christening. 

About Christmas appeared Kenil worth, in 3 vols, 
post 8vo, like Ivanhoe, which form was adhered to with 
all the subsequent novels of the series. Kenil worth was 

20 one of the most successful of them all at the time of 
publication ; and it continues, and, I doubt not, will ever 
continue to be placed in the very highest rank of prose 
fiction. The rich variety of character, and scenery, and 
incident in this novel, has never indeed been surpassed ; 

25 nor, with the one exception of the Bride of Lammermoor, 
has Scott bequeathed us a deeper and more affecting 
tragedy than that of Amy Robsart. 



CHAPTER XII 

Death of John Ballantyne — Visit of Miss Edgeworth 

— Reminiscences by Mr. Adolphus — Halidon Hill 

— The Pirate — The Fortunes of Nigel — Peveril of the 
Peak — Quentin Durward — and St, Ronan's Well — 
1821-1823. 

On the 16th of June 1821, died at Edinburgh John 
Ballantyne. As we stood together a few days afterwards, 
while the}^ were smoothing the turf over John's remains in 
the Cannongate churchyard, the heavens which had been 
dark and slaty, cleared up suddenly, and the midsummer 5 
sun shone forth in his strength. Scott, ever awake to the 
"skiey influences," cast his eye along the o^'erhanging 
line of the Calton Hill, -with its gleaming walls and towers, 
and then turning to the grave again, ''I feel," he whispered 
in my ear, — ''I feel as if there would be less sunshine for 10 
me from this day forth." 

The coronation of George IV. had been deferred in con- 
sequence of the unhappy affair of the Queen's Trial. The 
19th of July 1821 was now announced for this solemnity, 
and Sir Walter resolved to be among the spectators. 15 

At the close of that brilliant scene, he received a mark 
of homage to his genius which delighted him. Missing 
his carriage, he had to return home on foot from West- 
minster, after the banquet — that is to say, between two 
or three o'clock in the morning ; — when he and a young 20 
155 



156 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

gentleman his companion found themselves locked in the 
crowd, somewhere near Whitehall, and the bustle and 
tunmlt were such that his friend was afraid some accident 
might happen to the lame limb. A space for the digni- 
5 taries was kept clear at that point by the Scots Greys. ° 
Sir Walter addressed a serjeant of this celebrated regiment, 
begging to be allowed to pass by him into the open ground 
in the middle of the street. The man answered shortly, 
that his orders were strict — that the thing was impossible. 

lo While he was endeavouring to persuade the serjeant to 
relent, some new wave of turbulence approached from 
behind, and iiis young companion exclaimed in a loud 
voice, ''Take care, Sir Walter Scott, take care!" The 
stalwart dragoon, on hearing the name, said, "What! 

15 Sir Walter Scott? He shall get through anyhow!" 
He then addressed the soldiers near him — ''Make room, 
men, for Sir Walter Scott, our illustrious countryman!" 
The men answered, "Sir Walter Scott ! — God bless him ! " 
— and he was in a moment within the guarded line of 

20 safety. 

Sir Walter concluded, before he went to town in 
November, another negotiation of importance with the 
house of Constable. They agreed to give for the remain- 
ing copyright of the four novels published between De- 

25 cember 1819 and January 1821 — to wit, Ivanhoe, 
The Monastery, The Abbot, and Kenilworth — the 
sum of five thousand guineas. The stipulation about 
not revealing the author's name, under a penalty of 
L.2000, was repeated. By these four novels, the fruits 

30 of scarcely more than twelve months' labour, he had al- 
ready cleared at least L. 10,000 before this bargain was 
completed. I cannot pretend to guess w^hat the actual 
state of his pecuniary affairs was at the time when John 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 157 

Ballantj^ne's death relieved them from one great source 
of comphcation and difficulty. But I have said enough 
to satisfy every reader, that when he began the second, 
and far the larger division of his building at Abbotsford, 
he must have contemplated the utmost sum it could cost 5 
him as a mere trifle in relation to the resources at his com- 
mand. He must have reckoned on clearing L. 30,000 at 
least in the course of a couple of j^ears by the novels written 
within such a period. The pul^lisher of his Tales, who 
best knew how they were produced, and what they brought 10 
of gross profit, and who must have had the strongest 
interest in keeping the author's name untarnished by any 
risk or reputation of failure, would willingly, as we have 
seen, have given him L.6000 more within a space of two 
years for works of a less serious sort, likely to be despatched 15 
at leisure hours, without at all interfering with the main 
manufacture. But alas ! even this was not all. Messrs. 
Constable had such faith in the prospective fertility of 
his imagination, that they were by this time quite ready 
to sign bargains and grant bills for novels and romances 20 
to be produced hereafter, but of which the subjects and 
the names were alike unknown to them and to the man 
from whose pen they were to proceed. A forgotten satirist 
well says : — 

"The active principle within 25 

Works on some brains the effect of gin ;" 

but in Sir Walter's case, every external influence combined 
to stir the flame, and swell the intoxication of restless exu- 
berant energy. His allies knew indeed, what he did not, 
that the sale of his novels was rather less than it had been 30 
in the days of Ivanhoe; and hints had sometimes been 
dropped to him that it might be well to try the effect of a 



158 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

pause. But he always thought — and James Ballantyne 
had decidedly the same opinion — that his best things 
were those which he threw off the most easily and swiftly ; 
and it was no wonder that his booksellers, seeing how im- 
5 measurably even his worst excelled in popularity, as in 
merit, any other person's best, should have shrunk from 
the experiment of a decisive damper. On the contrary, 
they might be excused for from time to time flattering 
themselves, that if the books sold at less rate, tliis might 

lobe counterpoised by still greater rapidity of production. 
They could not make up their minds to cast the peerless 
vessel adrift; and, in short, after every little whisper of 
prudential misgiving, echoed the unfailing burden of 
Ballantyne's song — to push on, hoisting more and more 

15 sail as the wind lulled. 

He was as eager to do as they could be to suggest — and 
this I well knew at the time. I had, however, no notion, 
until all his correspondence lay before me, of the extent to 
which he had permitted himself thus early to build on the 

20 chances of hfe, health, and continued popularity. Before 
The Fortunes of Nigel issued from the press, Scott had 
exchanged instruments, and received his booksellers' bills, 
for no less than four "works of fiction" — not one of them 
otherwise described in the deeds of agreement — to be 

25 produced in unbroken succession, each of them to fill at 
least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to 
increase of copy-money in case any of them should run 
to four. And within two years all this anticipation had 
been wiped off by Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Dur- 

30 ward, St. Ronan's Well, and Redgauntlet ; and the new 
castle was by that time complete. But by that time the 
end also was approaching ! 
The splendid Romance of The Pirate was pubUshed 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 159 

in the beginning of December 1821 ; and the wild freshness 
of its atmosphere, the beautiful contrast of Minna and 
Brenda, and the exquisitely drawn character of Captain 
Cleveland, found the reception which they deserved. 

Whoever reads Scott's letters to Terry might naturally 5 
suppose that during this winter his thoughts w^ere almost 
exclusively occupied with the rising edifice on Tweedside. 
The pains he takes about every trifle of arrangement, ex- 
terior and interior, is truly most remarkable: it is not 
probable that many idle lords or lairds ever took half so 10 
much about such matters. But his literary industry was 
all the while unresting. His Nigel was completed by 
April 1822. Nor had he neglected a promise of the sum- 
mer before to suppl}' Miss Baillie with a contribution for 
a volume of miscellaneous verse, which she had under- 15 
taken to compile for the benc^fit of a friend in distress. 
With that view he now produced — and that, as I well 
remember, in the course of two rainy mornings at Abbots- 
ford — the dramatic sketch of Halidon Hill ; but on con- 
cluding it, he found that he had given it an extent quite 20 
incompatible with his friend's arrangements for her chari- 
table picnic. He therefore cast about for another subject 
likely to be embraced in smaller compass ; and the Blair- 
Adam° meeting of the next June supplied him with one in 
Macduff's Cross. Meantime, on hearing a whisper about 25 
Halidon Hill, Constable's junior partner, without seeing 
the MS., forthwith tendered L.IOOO for the copyright — 
the same sum that had appeared almost irrationally mu- 
nificent, when offered in 1807 for the embryo Marmion. 
It was accepted, and a letter about to be quoted will shew 30 
how^ well the head of the firm was pleased with this wild 
bargain. 

The Nigel was published on the 30th of May 1822 •, 



160 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

and was, I need not say, hailed as ranking in the first class 
of Scott's romances. Indeed, as a historical portraiture, 
his of James I stands forth preeminent, and almost alone ; 
nor, perhaps, in reperusing these novels deliberately as a 

S series, does any one of them leave so com.plete an impres- 
sion, as the picture of an age. It is, in fact, the best com- 
mentary on the old English drama — hardly a single 
picturesque point of manners touched by Ben Jonson° and 
his contemporaries but has been dovetailed into this story, 

lo and all so easily and naturally, as to form the most striking 

contrast to the historical romances of authors who cram, 

as the schoolboys phrase it, and then set to work oppressed 

and bewildered with their crude and undigested burden. 

On the day after the publication. Constable^ then near 

IS London, wrote thus to the author: — ''I was in town 
yesterday, and so keenly were the people devouring my 
friend Jingling Geordie, that I actually saw them reading 
it in the streets as they passed along. I assure you there 
is no exaggeration in this. A new novel from the Author 

20 of Waverley puts aside — in other words, puts down for 
the time, every other literary performance. The smack 
Ocean, by which the new work was shipped, arrived at 
the wharf on Sunday; the bales were got out by 07ie on 
Monday morning, and before half-past ten o'clock 7000 

25 copies had been dispersed ! I was truly happy to hear of 
Halidon Hill, and of the satisfactory arrangements made 
for its publication. I wish I had the power of prevailing 
with you to give us a similar production every three 
months; and that our ancient enemies on this side the 

30 Border might not have too much their own way, perhaps 
your next dramatic sketch might be Bannockburn. It 
would be presumptuous in me to point out subjects but 
you know my craving to be great, and I cannot railed 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 161 

mentioning here that I should like to see a battle of Hast- 
ings° — a Cressy° — a Bosworth field° — and many 
more." — The Nigel was just launched — Constable knew 
that Peveril of the Peak was already on the stocks : yet 
see how quietly he suggests that a Uttle pinnace of thes 
Hahdon class might easily be rigged out once a quarter 
by way of diversion, and thus add another L.4000 per 
annum to the L. 10,000 or L. 15,000, on which all parties 
counted as the sure yearly profit of the three-deckers in 
fore! In a letter of the ensuing month, after returning lo 
to the progress of Peveril of the Peak under 10,000 
copies of which (or nearl}^ that number) Ballantyne's 
presses were now groaning, and glancing gaity to the pros- 
pect of their being kept regularly emploj^ed to the same 
extent until three other novels, as yet unchristened, had is 
followed Peveril, he adds a summary of what was then, 
had just been, or was about to be, the amount of occu- 
pation furnished to the same office by reprints of older 
works of the same pen; — ''a summary," he exclaims, 
"to which I venture to say there will be no rival in our 20 
day ! " And well might Constable say so ; for the result is, 
that James Ballantyne and Co. had just executed, or were 
on the eve of executing, by his order — 

"A new edition of Sir W. Scott's Poetical Works, 

in 10 vols, (miniature) 5000 copies. 25 

"Novels and Tales, 12 vols, ditto, 5000 — 

"Historical Romances, 6 vols, ditto, 5000 — 

"Poetry from Waverley, &c. 1 vol. 12 mo. 5000 — 
"Paper required, .... 7772 reams. 
"Volumes produced from Ballantyne's press, 145,000 ! " 30 

To which we may safely add from 30,000 to 40,000 volumes 
^ TLe as the immediate produce of the author's daily 

M 



162 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

industiy within the space of twelve months. The scale 
of these operations was, without question, enough to 
turn any bookseller's wits ; — Constable's, in his soberest 
hours, was as inflammable a head-piece as ever sat on the 

5 shoulders of a poet ; and his ambition, in truth, had been 
moving 'pari passu ° during several of these last stirring and 
turmoiling years, with that of his poet. He, too, as I 
ought to have mentioned ere now, had, like a true Scotch- 
man, concentrated his dreams on the hope of bequeathing 

loto his heir the name and dignity of a lord of acres; he, 
too, had considerably before this time purchased a landed 
estate in his native county of Fife; he, too, I doubt not, 
had, while Abbotsford was rising, his own rural castle in 
petto°; and alas! for ''Archibald Constable of Balniel" 

15 also, and his overweening intoxication of worldly success, 
Fortune had already begun to prepare a stern rebuke. 
Early in October, Scott had another attack of illness. 
He says to Terry, in a letter full of details about silk- 
hangings, ebony-cabinets, and so forth: — "I have not 

20 been very well — a thickness of blood, and a depression 
of spirits, arising from the loss of friends, have annoyed me 
much ; and Peveril will, I fear, smell of the apoplexy. I 
propose a good rally, however, and hope it will be a power- 
ful effect. My idea is, e7itre nous° a Scotch archer in the 

25 French king's guard, tempore° Louis XL, the most pic- 
turesque of all times." This is the first allusion to 
Quentin Durward and also the species of malady that ul- 
timately proved fatal to Sir Walter Scott. The depression 
of spirits could not, however, have hung over him long. 

30 Peveril was completed, and some progress had also been 
achieved with Quentin Durward, before the year reached 
its close. Nor had he ceased to contemplate future labour 
with firmness and hopefulness. He, in October, received 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 163 

Constable's bills for another unnamed ''work of fiction;" 
and this was the last such work in which the great book- 
seller was destined to have any concern. The engage- 
ment was in fact that redeemed three years afterwards by 
Woodstock. S 

Peveril of the Peak appeared in January 1823. Its 
reception was somewhat colder than that of its three 
immediate predecessors. One morning soon after Peveril 
came out, one of our most famous wags (now famous for 
better things), namely Patrick Robertson, commonly lo 
called by the endearing Scottish diminutive ''Peter," ob- 
served that tall conical white head advancing above the 
crowd towards the fire-place, where the usual roar of fun 
was going on among the briefless, and said, "Hush, boys, 
here comes old Peveril — I see the Peak.'' A laugh en- 15 
sued, and Peter's application stuck; to his dying day, 
Scott was in the Outer-House Peveril of the Peak, or Old 
Peveril — and, by and by, like a good Cavalier, he took to 
the designation kindly. He was well aware that his own 
famil}' and younger friends constantly talked of him under 20 
this sobriquet. Many a little note have I had from him 
(and so probably has Peter also), reproving, or perhaps 
encouraging, Tory mischief , and signed, "Thine, Peveril." 

It w^as, perhaps, some inward misgiving towards the 
completion of Peveril, that determined Scott to break new 25 
ground in his next novel ; and as he had before aw^akened 
a fresh interest by venturing on Enghsh scenery and his- 
tory, try the still bolder experiment of a continental ex- 
cursion. However this may have been, he was encouraged 
and strengthened by the return of his friend Skene, about 30 
this time, from a tour in France ; in the course of which he 
had kept an accurate and lively journal, and executed a 
vast variety of clever drawings, representing landscapes 



164 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

and ancient buildings, such as would have been most 
sure to interest Scott had he been the companion of his 
wanderings. Mr. Skene's MS. collections were placed at 
his disposal, and he took from one of their chapters the 
5 substance of the original Introduction to Quentin Durward. 
Yet still his difficulties in this new undertaking were fre- 
quent, and of a sort to which he had hitherto been a 
stranger. I remember observing him many times in the 
Advocates' Library poring over maps and gazetteers with 

lo care and anxiety. 

The reader of his correspondence will find hints about 
various little matters connected with Scott's own advanc- 
ing edifice, in which he may trace the President of the 
Royal Society^ and the Chairman of the Gas Company. ° 

15 But I cannot say that the "century of inventions" at 
Abbotsford turned out very happily. His bells to move by 
compression of air in a piston proved a poor succedaneum 
for the simple wire ; and his application of gas-light to the 
interior of a dwelhng-house was in fact attended with so 

20 many inconveniences, that erelong all his family heartily 
wished it had never been thought of. Moreover, he had 
deceived himself as to the expense of such an apparatus 
when constructed and maintained for the use of a single 
domestic establishment. The effect of the apparatus was 

25 at first superb. In sitting down to table, in Autumn, no 
one observed that in each of three chandeliers there lurked 
a tiny bead of red light. Dinner passed off, and the sun 
went down, and suddenly, at the turning of a screw, the 
room was filled with a gush of splendour worthy of the 

30 palace of Aladdin ; but, as in the case of Aladdin, the old 
lamp would have been better in the upshot. Jewelry 
sparkled, but cheeks and lips looked cold and wan in this 
fierce illumination ; and the eye was wearied, and the brow 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 165 

ached, if the sitting was at all protracted. I confess, 
however, that my chief enmity to the whole affair arises 
from my conviction that Sir Walter's own health was 
damaged, in his latter years, in consequence of his habitu- 
ally working at night under the intense and burning glare 5 
of a broad star of gas. 

In June Quentin Durward was published; and sur- 
passing as its popularity was eventually, Constable, who 
w^as in London at the time, wrote in cold terms of its im- 
mediate reception. 10 

Very shortly before the bookseller left Edinburgh for 
that trip, he had concluded another bargain (his last of 
the sort) for the purchase of Waverley copyrights — ac- 
quiring the author's property in the Pirate, Nigel, Peveril, 
and also Quentin Durward, out and out, at the price of 15 
five thousand guineas. He had thus paid for the copy- 
right of novels (over and above the half profits of the 
early separate editions)' the sum of L. 22, 500; and his 
advances upon "works of fiction" still in embryo amounted 
at this moment to L. 10,000 more. He began, in short, 20 
and the wonder is that he began so late, to suspect that 
the process of creation was moving too rapidty. The pub- 
lication of different sets of the Tales in a collective shape 
may probabl}" have had a share in opening his eyes to the 
fact, that the voluminousness of an author is anything but 25 
favourable to the rapid diffusion of his works as library 
books — the great object with any publisher who aspires 
at founding a solid fortune. But he merely intimated on 
this occasion that, considering the usual chances of life 
and health, he must decline contracting for any more 30 
novels until those already bargained for were written. 
Scott himself appears to have admitted for a moment the 
suspicion that he had been overdoing in the field of ro- 



166 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

mance; and opened the scheme of a work on popular 
superstitions, in the form of dialogue, for which he had 
long possessed ample materials in his curious library of 
diablerie. But before Constable had leisure to consider 
5 this proposal in all its bearings, Quentin Durward, from 
being, as Scott expressed it, frost-bit, had emerged into 
most fervid and flourishing life. In fact, the sensation 
which this novel on its first appearance created in Paris, 
was extremely similar to that which attended the original 

loWaverley in Edinburgh, and Ivanhoe afterwards in Lon- 
don. For the first time Scott had ventured on foreign 
ground, and the French public, long wearied of the pom- 
pous tragedians and feeble romancers, who had alone 
striven to bring out the ancient history and manners of 

15 their country in popular forms, were seized with a fever of 
delight when Louis XL° and Charles the Bold° started into 
life again at the beck of the Northern Magician. The 
result of Quentin Durward, as regards the contemporary 
literature of the Continent, would open a field for ample 

20 digression. As concerns the author himself, the rays of 
foreign enthusiasm speedily thawed the frost of Constable's 
unwonted misgivings ; the Dialogues on Superstition, if he 
ever began them, were very soon dropped, and the Nove- 
list resumed his pen. He had not sunk under the short- 

25 lived frown — for he wrote to Ballantyne, on first ascer- 
taining that a damp was thrown on his usual manufacture, 

''The mouse who only trusts to one poor hole, 
Can never be a mouse of any soul ;" 

and, while his publisher yet remained irresolute as to the 
30 plan of Dialogues, threw off his excellent Essay on Ro- 
mance for the Encyclopaedia Brittanica ; and I cannot 
but consider it as another display of his high self-reliance, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 167 

that, though he well knew to what influence Quentin owed 
its ultimate success in the British market, he, the instant 
he found himself encouraged to take up the trade of story- 
telling again, sprang back to Scotland — nay, voluntarily 
encountered new difficulties, by selecting the compara-s 
tively tame and unpicturesque realities of modern manners 
in his native province. 

The month of August 1823 was one of the happiest in 
Scott's life. Never did I see a brighter day at Abbotsford 
than that on which Miss Edgeworth° first arrived there lo 
— never can I forget her look and accent when she was 
received by him at his archway, and exclaimed, ''Every- 
thing about you is exactly what one ought to have had wit 
enough to dream !" The weather was beautiful, and the 
edifice, and its appurtenances, were all but complete ; and 15 
day after day, so long as she could remain, her host had 
alw^ays some new plan of gaiety. One day there was fish- 
ing on the Cauldshields' Loch, and a dinner on the heathy 
bank. Another, the whole party feasted by Sir Thomas 
the Rhymer's waterfall in the glen — and the stone on 20 
which Maria that day sat was ever afterwards called 
EdgewortKs Stone. Thus a fortnight was passed — and 
the vision closed ; for Miss Edgeworth never saw Abbots- 
ford again during his life ; and I am very sure she could 
never bear to look upon it now that the spirit is fled. 25 

Another welcome guest of the same month was Mr. 
Adolphus° — the author of the Letters to Heber° ; whose 
reminiscences of this and several subsequent \isits are 
singularly vivid and interesting. He says : — 

''No one who has seen him can forget the surprising 30 
power of change which his countenance showed when 
awakened from a state of composure. In 1823, his face, 
which was healthy and sanguine, and the hair about it, 



168 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

which had a strong reddish tinge, contrasted rather than 
harmonized with the sleek, silvery locks above ; a contrast 
which might seem rather suited to a jovial and humorous, 
than to a pathetic expression. But his features were 

5 equally capable of both. The form and hue of his eyes 
(for the benefit of minute physiognomists it should be 
noted that the iris contained some small specks of brown) 
were wonderfully calculated for shewing great varieties of 
emotion. Their mournful aspect was extremely earnest 

lo and affecting ; and when he told some dismal and mys- 
terious story, they had a doubtful, melancholy, exploring 
look, which appealed irresistibly to the hearer's imagina- 
tion. Occasionally, when he spoke of something very 
audacious or eccentric, they would dilate and light up with 

IS a tragi-comic, hare-brained expression, quite pecuUar 
to himself ; one might see in it a whole chapter of Cceur- 
de-lion and the Clerk of Copmanhurst. Never, perhaps, 
did a man go through all the gradations of laughter with 
such complete enjoyment, and a countenance so radiant. 

20 The first dawn of a humorous thought would shew itself 
sometimes, as he sat silent, by an involuntary lengthening 
of the upper lip, followed by a shy sidelong glance at his 
neighbours, indescribably whimsical, and seeming to ask 
from their looks whether the spark of drollery should be 

25 suppressed or allowed to blaze out. In the full tide of 
mirth he did indeed 'laugh the heart's laugh,' like Walpole, 
but it was not boisterous and overpowering, nor did it 
check the course of his words ; he could go on telling or 
descanting, while his lungs did 'crow like chanticleer,' 

30 his syllables, in the struggle, growing more emphatic, his 
accent more strongly Scotch, and his voice plaintive with 
excess of merriment." 

St. Ronan's Well was published in December, and 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 169 

in its English reception there was another faUing off, 
which of course somewhat dispirited the bookseller for the 
moment. Scotch readers in general dissented stoutly 
from this judgment, alleging (as they might well do) that 
Meg Dods deserved a place by the side of Monkbarns, 5 
Baihe Jarvie, and Captain Dalgetty ; — that no one, who 
had lived in the author's own country, could hesitate to 
recognise vivid and happy portraitures in Touchwood, Mac- 
Turk, and the recluse minister of St. Ronan's ; — that the 
descriptions of natural scenery might rank with any he had 10 
given ; — and, finally, that the whole character of Clara 
Mowbray, but especially its development in the third 
volume, formed an original creation, destined to be classed 
by posterity with the highest efforts of tragic romance. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Publication of Redgauntlet — Abbotsford completed — 
Marriage of Captain Scott — Constable's Miscellany 
projected — Life of Napoleon begun — Tales of the 
Crusaders published — Tour in Ireland — Rumours of 
Evil among the Booksellers — 1824-1825. 

Immediately on the conclusion of St. Ronan's Well, Sir 
Walter began Redgauntlet; — but it had made consider- 
able progress at press before Constable and Ballantyne 
could persuade him to substitute that title for Herries. 
5 The book was pubhshed in June 1824, and was received 
at the time somewhat coldly, though it has since, I beheve, 
found more justice. The reintroduction of the adventu- 
rous hero of 1745, in the dulness and duimess of advancing 
age and fortunes hopelessly blighted — and the presenting 

lo him — with whose romantic portraiture at an earlier period 
historical truth had been so admirably blended — as the 
moving principle of events, not only entirely, but notori- 
ously imaginary — this was a rash experiment, and could 
not fail to suggest disadvantageous comparisons ; yet, had 

IS there been no Waverley, I am persuaded the fallen and 
faded Ascanius° of Redgauntlet would have been univer- 
sally pronounced a masterpiece. 

This year — mirabile dictu! ° — produced but one novel ; 
and it is not impossible that the author had taken deeply 

2o into his mind, though he would not immediately act upon 
them, certain hints about the danger of ''overcropping/' 

170 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 111 

which have been alluded to as dropping from his publishers 
in 1823. He had, however, a labour of some weight to 
go through in a second edition of his Swift. The additions 
to this reprint were numerous, and he corrected his notes, 
and the "Life of the Dean" throughout, with care. 5 

Notwithstanding numberless letters to Terry about his 
upholstery, the far greater part of it was manufactured at 
home. The most of the articles from London were only 
models for the use of two or three neat-handed carpenters 
whom he had discovered in the villages near him ; and he 10 
watched and directed their operations as carefully as a 
George Bullock° could have done ; and the results were such 
as even Bullock might have admired. The great table in 
the hbrary, for example (a most complex and beautiful 
one), was done entirel}^ in the room where it now stands, 15 
by Joseph Shillinglaw of Darnick — the Sheriff planning 
and studying every turn as zealously as ever an old lady 
pondered the development of an embroidered cushion. 
The hangings and curtains, too, were chiefly the work of a 
little hunch-backed tailor, by name William Goodfellow — 20 
(save at Abbotsford, where he answered to Robin) — who 
occupied a cottage on Scott's farm of the Broomielees ; one 
of the race who creep from homestead to homestead, wel- 
comed wherever they appear by housewife and hand- 
maiden, the great gossips and newsmen of the parish, — in 25 
Scottish nomenclature cardooers. Proudly and earnestly 
did all these vassals toil in his service ; and I think it was 
one of them that, when some stranger asked a question 
about his personal demeanour, answered in these simple 
words — '^Sir Walter speaks to every man as if they were 30 
blood-relations." Not long after he had completed his 
work at Abbotsford, Uttle Goodfellow fell sick, and as hi.s 
cabin was near Chiefswood, I had many opportunities of 



171' LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

observing the Sheriff's kind attention to him in his affli ra- 
tion. I can never forget the evening on which the poor 
tailor died. When Scott entered the hovel he found every- 
thing silent, and inferred from the looks of the good women 
5 in attendance that their patient had fallen asleep, and that 
they feared his sleep was the final one. He murmured 
some syllables of kind regret ; — at the sound of his voice 
the dying tailor unclosed his eyes, and eagerly and wist- 
fully sat up, clasping his hands with an expression of 

lo rapturous gratefulness and devotion, that, in the midst 
of deformity, disease, pain, and wretchedness, was at once 
beautiful and sublime. He cried with a loud voice, 
''The Lord bless and reward you!" and expired with 
the effort. 

IS In the painting too Sir Walter personally directed every- 
thing. He abominated the commonplace daubing of walls, 
panels, doors, and window-boards, with coats of white, 
blue, or grey, and thought that sparklings and edgings of 
gilding only made their baldness and poverty more notice- 

20 able. Except in the drawing-room, which he abandoned 
to Lady Scott's taste, all the roofs were in appearance at 
least of antique carved oak, relieved by coats of arms duly 
blazoned at the intersections of beams, and resting on 
cornices to the eye of the same material, but composed 

25 of casts in plaster of Paris, after the foliage, the flowers, 
the grotesque monsters and dwarfs, and sometimes the 
beautiful heads of nuns and confessors, on which he had 
doated from infancy among the cloisters of Melrose 
and Roslin. Li the painting of these things, also, he 

30 had instruments who considered it as a labour of love. 
The master-limner, in particular (Mr. D. R. Hay), had 
a devoted attachment to his person; and this was not 
wonderful, for he, in fact, owed a prosperous fortune to 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 173 

Scott's kind and sagacious counsel tendered at the very 
outset of his career. 

By Christmas the Tales of the Crusaders were begun, 
and Abbotsford was at last rid of carpenters and up- 
holsterers. Young Walter arrived to see his father's s 
house complete, and filled wdth a larger company than it 
could ever before accommodate. One of the guests was 
Captain Basil Hall, always an agreeable one : a traveller 
and a savant, full of stories and theories, inexliaustible in 
spirits, curiosit}', and enthusiasm. Sir Walter was sur- lo 
prised and a little annoyed on observing that the Captain 
kept a note-book on his knee while at table, but made no 
remark. He kindly allowed me, in 1836, to read his 
Abbotsford Diaries, &c., and make what use of them I 
might then think proper. On the present occasion I must 15 
give but a specimen : — 

"Last night there was a dance in honour of Sir Walter 
Scott's eldest son, who had recenth- come from Sandhurst 
College, ° after ha^•ing passed through some military ex- 
aminations with great credit. We had a great clan of 20 
Scotts. There were no less than nine Scotts of Harden, 
and ten of other famihes. There were others besides from 
the neighbourhood — at least half a dozen Fergussons, 
with the jolly Sir Adam at their head — Lady Fergusson, 
her niece Aliss Jobson, the pretty heiress of Lochore," &c. 25 
But with all his acuteness. Hall does not seem to have 
caught any suspicion of the real purpose and meaning of 
this ball. That evening was one of the very proudest and 
happiest in Scott's brilUant existence. Its festivities were 
held in honour of the young lady, whom the Captain names 30 
cursorily as ''the prettj^ heiress of Lochore." It was 
known to not a few of the party, and I should have sup- 
posed it might have been surmised by the rest, that those 



174 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

halls were displayed for the first time in all their splendour, 
on an occasion not less interesting to the Poet than the 
conclusion of a treaty of marriage between the heir of his 
name and fortunes, and the amiable niece of his friends 
5 Sir Adam and Lady Fergusson. It was the first regular 
ball given at Abbotsford, and the last. Nay, I beheve 
nobody has ever danced under that roof since then. I 
myself never again saw the whole range of apartments 
thrown open for the reception of company except once — 

loon the day of Sir Walter Scott's funeral. 

The lady's fortune was a handsome one, and her guard- 
ians exerted the powers with which they were invested, 
by requiring that the marriage-contract should settle 
Abbotsford (with reservation of Sir Walter's own liferent) 

15 upon the affianced parties. To this condition he gave a 
ready assent, and the moment he had signed the deed, he 
exclaimed — "I have now parted with my lands with more 
pleasure than I ever derived from the acquisition or pos- 
session of them ; and if I be spared for ten years, I think 

20 1 may promise to settle as much more again upon these 
young folks." It was well for himself and his children that 
liis auguries, which failed so miserably as to the matter of 
worldly wealth, were destined to no disappointment as 
respected considerations of a higher description. 

25 The marriage took place at Edinburgh on the 3d day of 
February, and when the young couple left Abbotsford two 
or three weeks afterwards. Sir Walter promised to visit 
them at their regimental quarters in Ireland in the course 
of the summer. Before he fulfilled that purpose he had 

30 the additional pleasure of seeing his son gazetted° as Cap- 
tain in the King's Hussars — a step for which Sir Walter 
advanced the large sum of L.3500. 

But at this time the chief subject of concern was a grand 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 175 

scheme of revolution in the whole art and traffic of pub- 
lishing, which Constable first opened in detail one Saturday 
at Abbotsford — none being present except Sir Walter, 
Ballantyne, and myself. The reader does not need to be 
told that the series of cheap volumes, subsequently issued 5 
under the title of "Constable's Miscellany," was the 
scheme on which this great bookseller was brooding. 
Before he left Abbotsford, it was arranged that the first 
number of this collection should consist of one half of 
Waverley; the second, of the first section of a "Life of lo 
Xapoleon Bonaparte by the author of Waverle}^"; that 
this Life should be comprised in four of these numbers; 
and that, until the whole series of his novels had been 
issued, a volume every second month, in this new and un- 
costly form, he should keep the Ballantyne press going 15 
with a series of historical works, to be issued on the al- 
ternate months. 

Some circumstances in the progress of the Tales of the 
Crusaders, now on the eve of pubhcation, must have 
been uppermost in Scott's mind when he met Constable's 20 
proposals with so much alacrity. The story of The Be- 
trothed — (to which he was mainly prompted by the 
lively conversation on Welsh antiquities of Archdeacon 
WilUams) — found no favour as it advanced with Bal- 
lantyne ; and so hea^ily did his critical remonstrances 25 
weigh on the author, that he at length determined to can- 
cel it for ever. The tale, however, all but a chapter or 
two, had been printed off, and both pubhsher and printer 
paused about committing such a mass to the flames. The 
sheets were hung up meanwhile, and Scott began The 30 
Tahsman — of which also James criticised the earher 
chapters in such a strain that Scott was deeply vexed. 
"Is it wise," he wrote, "to mend a dull overloaded fire by 



176 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

heaping on a shovelful of wet coals?" and hinted some 
doubts whether he should proceed. He did so, however; 
the critical printer by degrees warmed to the story, and 
he at last pronounced The Talisman such a masterpiece, 

5 that The Betrothed might venture abroad under its 
wing. Sir Walter was now reluctant on that subject, and 
said he would rather write two more new novels than the 
few pages necessary to complete his unfortunate "Be- 
trothed." But while he hesitated, the German news- 

lo papers announced "a new romance by the author of Waver- 
ley" as about to issue from the press of Leipsig. There 
was some ground for suspecting that a set of the suspended 
sheets might have been purloined and sold to a pirate, and 
this consideration put an end to his scruples. And when 

IS the German did publish the fabrication, entitled Walladr 
mor, it could no longer be doubtful that some reader of 
Scott's sheets had communicated at least the fact that he 
was breaking ground in Wales. 

Early in June, then, the Tales of the Crusaders were 

20 put forth; and, as Mr. Ballantyne had predicted, the 
brightness of the Talisman dazzled the eyes of the miUion 
as to the defects of the twin-story. Few of these publi- 
cations had a more enthusiastic greeting; and Scott's 
literary plans were, as the reader will see reason to infer, 

25 considerably modified in consequence of the new burst of 
applause which attended the briUiant procession of his 
Saladin and Coeur de Lion. 

He began, without delay, what was meant to be a very 
short preliminary sketch of the French Revolution, prior 

30 to the appearance of his hero upon the scene of action. 
This, he thought, might be done almost currente calamo° ; 
for his recollection of all the great events as they oc- 
curred was vivid, and he had not failed to peruse every 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 111 

book of an}' considerable importance on these subjects as 
it issued from the press. He apprehended the necessity, 
on the other hand, of more laborious study in the way of 
reading than he had for many years had occasion for, be- 
fore he could enter with advantage upon Buonaparte's s 
military career; and Constable accordingly set about 
collecting a new library of printed materials, which con- 
tinued from day to day pouring in upon him, till his little 
parlour in Castle Street looked more like an auctioneer's 
premises than an author's. The first waggon delivered lo 
itself of about a hundi'ed huge folios of the Moniteur°; 
and London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels, were all 
laid under contribution to meet the bold demands of his 
purveyor. 

In the meantime he advanced with his Introduction ; is 
and, catching fii-e as the theme expanded before him, had 
so soon several chapters in his desk, without having trav- 
elled over half the ground assigned for them, that Constable 
saw it would be in vain to hope for the completion of the 
work within four duodecimos. They resolved that it 20 
should be published, in the fu'st instance, as a separate 
book, in four volumes of the same size with the Tales of 
the Crusaders, but with more pages and m_ore letterpress 
to each page. Scarcely had this been settled before it 
became obvious, that four such volumes would never 25 
suffice ; and the number was w^eek after week extended — 
with corresponding alterations as to the rate of the author's 
pa3^nient. Constable still considered the appearance of 
the second edition of the Life of Napoleon in his Mis- 
cellany as the great point on which the fortunes of that 30 
undertaking were to turn ; and its commencement was in 
consequence adjourned; which, however, must have been 
the case at any rate, as the stock of the Novels was greater 

N 



178 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

than he had calculated; and some interval must elapse, 
before, with fairness to the retail trade, he could throw that 
long series into any cheaper form. 

Before the Court rose in July, Sir Walter had made 

5 considerable progress in his Sketch of the French Revo- 
lution ; but it was agreed that he should make his prom- 
ised excursion to Ireland before any MS. went to the 
printers. 

On the 1st of August we proceeded from Dublin to 

lo Edgeworthstown, the party being now reinforced by Cap- 
tain and Mrs. Scott. A happy meeting it was : we re- 
mained there for several days, making excursions to Loch 
Oel and other scenes of interest in Longford and the 
adjoining counties; the gentry everywhere exerting them- 

15 selves with true Irish zeal to signalize their affectionate 
pride in their illustrious countrywoman, and their appre- 
ciation of her guest ; while her brother, Mr. Lovell Edge- 
worth, had his classical mansion filled every evening with 
a succession of distinguished friends, the elite of Ireland. 

2o Here, above all, we had the opportunity of seeing in what 
universal respect and comfort a gentleman's family may 
live in that country, and in far from its most favoured 
district, provided only they live there habitually, and do 
their duty as the friends and guardians of those among 

25 whom Providence has appointed their proper place. Here 
we found neither mud hovels nor naked peasantry, but 
snug cottages and smiling faces all about. Here there was 
a very large school in the village, of which masters and 
pupils were in a nearly equal proportion Protestants and 

30 Roman Catholics — the Protestant squire himself making 
it a regular part of his daily business to visit the scene of 
their operations, and strengthen authority and enforce 
discipline by his personal superintendence. It is a curious 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 179 

enough coincidence that Oliver Goldsmith and Maria 
Edgeworth should both have derived their early love and 
knowledge of Irish character and manners from the same 
identical district. He received part of his education at 
this very school of Edgeworthstown ; and PaUasmores 
(the locus cm nomen est Pallas of Johnson's epitaph°), 
the little hamlet where the author of the Vicar of Wake- 
field fii'st saw the hght, is still, as it was in his time, the 
property of the Edgeworths. It may well be imagined 
with what lively interest Sir Walter surveyed the scenery lo 
with which so many of the proudest recollections of Ire- 
land must ever be associated, and how curiously he studied 
the rural manners it presented to him, in the hope (not 
disappointed) of being able to trace some of his friend's 
bright creations to their first hints and germs. I was is 
then a young man, and I cannot forget how much I was 
struck at the time by some words that fell from one of 
them, when, in the course of a walk in the park at Edge- 
worthstown, I happened to use some phrase which con- 
veyed (though not perhaps meant to do so) the impression 20 
that I suspected Poets and NoveHsts of being a good deal 
accustomed to look at life and the world only as materials 
for art. A soft and pensive shade came over Scott's 
face as he said — ''I fear you have some very young ideas 
in your head : — are you not too apt to measure things 25 
by some reference to literature — to disbelieve that any- 
body can be worth much care, who has no knowledge 
of that sort of thing, or taste for it ? God help us ! what 
a poor world this would be if that were the true doctrine ! 
I have read books enough, and observed and conversed 30. 
with enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, 
too, in my time; but I assure you, I have heard higher 
sentiments from the hps of poor uneducated men and 



180 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

women, when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle 
heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their 
simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends 
and neighbours, than I ever yet met with out of the pages 

5 of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and respect 
our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught our- 
selves to consider everything as moonshine, compared 
with the education of the heart." Maria did not listen to 
this without some water in her eyes — (her tears are always 

lo ready when any generous string is touched ; — for, as 
Pope says, ''the finest minds, hke the finest metals, dis- 
solve the easiest ; ") — but she brushed them gaily aside, 
and said, "You see how it is — Dean Swift said he had 
written his books in order that people might learn to treat 

IS him like a great lord — Sir Walter writes his in order that 
he may be able to treat his people as a great lord ought 
to do." 

Lest I should forget to mention it, I put down here a 
rebuke which, later in his life. Sir Walter once gave in my 

20 hearing to his daughter Anne. She happened to say of 
something, I forget what, that she could not abide it — 
it was vulgar. "My love," said her father, "you speak 
like a very young lady ; do you know, after all, the meaning 
of this w^ord vulgar? 'Tis only common; nothing that is 

25 common, except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of 

in a tone of contempt; and when you have hved to my 

years, you mil be disposed to agree \\dth me in thanking 

. God that nothing really worth having or caring about in 

this world is uncommo7iJ^ 

30 He reached Abbotsford again on the 1st of September. 
Without an hour's delay he resumed his usual habits of 
life — the masing ramble among his own glens, the 
breezy ride over the moors, the merr}^ spell at the wood- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 181 

man's axe, or the festive chase of Newark, Fernilee, Hang- 
ingshaw, or Deioraine; the quiet old-fashioned content- 
ment of the httle domestic circle, alternating with the 
brilhant phantasmagoria of admiring, and sometimes 
admired, strangers — or the hoisting of the telegraph 5 
flag that called laird and bonnet-laird to the burning of 
the water, or the wassail of the hall. The hours of the 
closet alone had found a change. The preparation for 
the Life of Napoleon was a course of such hard reading 
as had not been called for while ''the great magician," 10 
in the full sunshine of ease, amused himself, and delighted 
the world, by unrolling, fold after fold, his endlessly varied 
panorama of romance. That miracle had to all appear- 
ance cost him no effort. Unmoved and serene among the 
multiplicities of worldly business, and the invasions of 15 
half Europe and America, he had gone on tranquilly 
enjojdng, rather than exerting his genius, in the production 
of those masterpieces which have peopled all our firesides 
with inexpensive friends, and rendered the solitary suprem- 
acy of Shakspeare, as an all-comprehensive and genial 20 
painter of man, no longer a proverb. 

He had, while this was the occupation of his few desk- 
hours, read only for his diversion. How much he read 
even then, his correspondence may have afforded some 
notion. Those who observed him the most constantly, 25 
were never able to understand how he contrived to keep 
himself so thoroughly up with the stream of contemporary 
literature of almost all sorts, French and German, as well 
as English. That a rapid glance might tell him more 
than another man could gather by a week's poring, may 30 
easily be guessed ; but the grand secret was his perpetual 
practice of his own grand maxim, never to be doing nothing. 
He had no "unconsidered trifles " of time. Every moment 



182 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

was turned to account ; and thus he had leisure for every- 
thing — except, indeed, the newspapers, which consume 
so many precious hours now-a-days with most men, and 
of which, during the period of my acquaintance witli him, 
she certainly read less than any other man I ever knew 
that had any habit of reading at all. I should also except, 
speaking generally, the Reviews and Magazines of the 
time. Of these he saw few, and of the few he read 
little. 
10 He had now to apply himself doggedly to the mastering 
of a huge accumulation of historical materials. He read, 
and noted, and indexed with the pertinacity of some pale 
compiler in the British Museum ; but rose from such em- 
•ployment, not radiant and buoyant, as after he had been 
IS feasting himself among the teeming harvests of Fancy, 
but with an aching brow, and eyes on which the dimness 
of years had begun to plant some specks, before they were 
subjected again to that straining over small print and 
difficult manuscript which had, no doubt, been familiar 
20 to them in the early time, when in (Shortreed's phrase) 
''he was making himself." It was a pleasant sight when 
one happened to take a passing peep into his den, to see 
the white head erect, and the smile of conscious inspiration 
on his lips, while the pen, held boldly, and at a command- 
as ing distance, glanced steadily and gaily along a fast-black- 
ening page of The Talisman. It now often made me 
sorry to catch a glimpse of him, stooping and poring with 
his spectacles, amidst piles of authorities — a little note- 
book ready in the left hand, that had alwaj^s used to be at 
30 liberty for patting Maida. 

Towards the end of September I returned to Scotland 
from a visit to London on some personal business. During 
that visit I had heard a great deal more than I understood 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 183 

about the commercial excitement of the time. There had 
been several years of extravagant speculation. 

Among other hints were some concerning a bookselling 
estabhshment in London, with which I knew Constable to 
be closely connected. Little suspecting the extent to 5 
which any mischance of Messrs. Hurst and Robinson must 
involve Sir Walter's own responsibilities, I transmitted 
to him the rumours in question. Before I could have his 
answer, a legal friend told me that people were talking 
doubtfully about Constable's own stability. I thought it 10 
probable, that if Constable fell into smy embarrassments, 
Scott might suffer the inconvenience of losing the copy- 
money of his last novel. Nothing more serious occurred 
to me. But I thought it my duty to tell him this whisper 
also ; and heard from him, almost by return of post, that, 15 
shake who might in London, his friend in Edinburgh was 
'^rooted, as well as branched, hke the oak." 

Scott soon convinced himself that it would facilitate, not 
impede, his progress wdth Napoleon, to have a w^ork of 
imagination in hand also. The success of the Tales of 20 
the Crusaders had been very high; and Constable, well 
aware that it had been his custom of old to carry on two 
romances at the same time, was now too happy to encour- 
age him in beginning Woodstock, to be taken up whenever 
the historical MS. should be in advance of the press. 25 

Thenceforth, as the Diary shews, he continued to cUvide 
his usual desk-hours accordingly : but before he had filled 
many pages of the private Quarto, it begins to record 
alarm — from day to day deepening — as to Constable, 
and the extent to which the great pubhsher's affairs had 30 
by degrees come to be connected and bound up with those 
of the printing firm. 

Till John Ballantyne's death, as already intimated, the 



184 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

pecuniary management of that firm had been wholly in his 
hands. Of his conduct in such business I need add no 
more : the burden had since been on his surviving brother ; 
and I am now obliged to say that, though his deficiencies 
5 were of a very different sort from John's, they were, as 
respected his commercial career and connexions, great and 
unfortunate. 

He was busy, indeed; and inestimably serviceable to 
Scott was his labour ; but it consisted solely in the correc- 

10 tion and revisal of proof-sheets. It is most true, that Sir 
Walter's hurried method of composition rendered it abso- 
lutely necessary that whatever he wrote should be sub- 
jected to far more than the usual amount of inspection 
required at the hands of a printer ; and it is equally so, 

IS that it would have been extremely difficult to find another 
man willing and able to bestow such time and care on his 
proof-sheets as they uniformly received from James. But 
this was, in fact, not the proper occupation of the man who 
was at the head of the establishment — who had under- 

20 taken the pecuniary management. In a letter addressed 
to John Ballantyne, when the bookselling-house was break- 
ing up, Scott says, — "One or other of you will need to be 
constantly in the printing-office henceforth; it is the sheet 
anchor." This was ten years after that estabUshment 

25 began. Thenceforth James, in comphance with this 
injunction, occupied, during many hours of every day, a 
cabinet within the premises in the Canongate; but who- 
ever visited him there, found him at the same eternal 
business, that of a literator, not that of a printer. He was 

30 either editing his newspaper — or correcting sheets, or 
writing critical notes to the Author of Waverley. Shake- 
speare, Addison, Johnson, and Burke, were at his elbow; 
but not the ledger. We may thus understand poor John's 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 185 

complaint, in what I may call his djdng memorandum, 
of the ''large sums abstracted from the bookselling house 
for the use of the printing-office." Yet that bookselling 
house was from the first a hopeless one; whereas, under 
accurate superintendence, the other ought to have pro- 5 
duced the partners a dividend of from L.2000 to L.3000 
a-3'ear, at the very least. 

On the other hand, the . necessity of providing some 
remedy for this radical disorder must very soon have 
forced itself upon the conviction of all concerned, had not 10 
John introduced his fatal enlightenment on the subject 
of facilitating discounts, and raising cash b}^ means of 
accommodation-bills. Hence the perplexed states and 
calendars — the woldernesses and labyrinths of ciphers, 
through which no eye but that of a professed accountant 15 
could have detected any clue; hence the accumulation of 
bills and counter-bills drawn by both bookselling and print- 
ing-house, and gradually so mixed up ^vith other obliga- 
tions, that John died in utter ignorance of the condition 
of their affairs. The pecuniary detail then devolved upon 20 
Jam.es; and I fancy it will be only too apparent that 
he never made even one serious effort to master the 
formidable array of figures thus committed to his sole 
trust. 

The reader has been enabled to trace from its beginnings 25 
the connexion between Constable and the tw^o Ballantjaie 
firms. It has been seen how much they both owed to his 
interference on various occasions of pressure and alarm. 
But when he, in his over-weening self-sufficiency, thought 
it involved no mighty hazard to indulge his better feel- 30 
ings, as well as his lordly vanity, in shielding these firms 
from commercial dishonour, he had estimated but loosely 
the demands of the career of speculation on which he was 



186 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

himself entering. And by and by, when advancing by 
one mighty plunge after another in that vast field, he felt 
in his own person the threatenings of more signal ruin than 
could have befallen them, this ''Napoleon of the press" — 
S still as of old buoyed up to the ultimate result of his grand 
operations by the most fulsome flatteries of imagination — 
appears to have tossed aside very summarily all scruples 
about the extent to which he might be entitled to tax 
their sustaining credit in requital. The Ballantynes, 

loif they had comprehended all the bearings of the case, 
were not the men to consider grudgingly demands of this 
nature, founded on service so important; and who can 
doubt that Scott viewed them from a chivalrous altitude ? 
It is easy to see, that the moment the obligations became 

15 reciprocal, there arose extreme peril of their coming to be 
hopelessly complicated. It is equally clear, that Scott 
ought to have applied on these affairs, as their comphca- 
tion thickened, the acumen which he exerted, and rather 
prided himself in exerting, on smaller points of worldly 

20 business, to the utmost. That he did not, I must always 
regard as the enigma of his personal history ; but various 
incidents in that history, which I have already narrated, 
prove incontestably that he had never done so; and I 
am unable to account for this having been the case, except 

25 on the supposition that his confidence in the resources 
of Constable and the prudence ^f James Ballantyne was 
so entire, that he willingly absolved himseK from all duty 
of active and thoroughgoing superinspection. 

This is sufficiently astonishing — and had this been all, 

30 the result must sooner or later have been sufficiently 
uncomfortable ; but it must be admitted that Scott could 
never have foreseen a step which Constable took in the 
frenzied excitement of his day of pecuniary alarm. Owing 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 187 

to the original habitual irregularities of John Ballantyne, 
it had been adopted as the regular plan between that 
person and Constable, that, whenever the latter signed a 
bill for the purpose of the other's raising money among 
the bankers, there should, in case of his neglecting to take S 
that bill up before it fell due, be deposited a counter-bill, 
signed by Ballantyne, on which Constable might, if need 
were, raise a sum equivalent to that for which he had 
pledged his credit. I am told that this is an usual enough 
course of procedure among specidative merchants ; and lo 
it may be so. But mark the issue. The plan went on 
under James's management, just as John had begun it. 
Under his management also — such was the incredible 
looseness of it — the counter-hills, meant only for being 
sent into the market in the event of the primary bills being i5 
threatened with dishonour — these instruments of safe- 
guard for Constable against contingent danger were al- 
lowed to lie uninquired about in Constable's desk, until 
thej^ had swelled to a truly monstrous ''sheaf of stamps." 
Constable's hour of distress darkened about him, and he 20 
rushed with these to the money-changers. And thus it 
came to pass, that, supposing Ballant3me and Co. to have 
at the day of reckoning, obligations against them, in con- 
sequence of bill transactions with Constable, to the extent 
of L. 25,000, they were legally responsible for L.50,000. 25 

Scott's friends, and above all posterity, are not left to 
consider his fate without consohng reflections. They 
who knew and loved him, must ever remember that the 
real nobiUt}^ of his character could not have exhibited 
itself to the world at large, had he not been exposed in his 30 
later years to the ordeal of adversity. And others as well 
as they may feel assured, that had not that adversity been 
preceded by the perpetual spur of pecuniaiy demands, he 



188 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

who began life with such quick appetites for all its ordi- 
nary enjoyments, would never have devoted himself to 
the rearing of that gigantic monument of genius, labour, 
and power, which his works now constitute. The imagi- 

5 nation which has bequeathed so much to deUght and hu- 
manize mankind, would have developed few of its miraculous 
resources, except in the embeUishment of his own personal 
existence. The enchanted spring might have sunk into 
earth with the rod that bade it gush, and left us no living 

lo waters. We cannot understand, but we may nevertheless 
respect, even the strangest caprices of the marvellous com- 
bination of faculties to which our debt is so weighty. We 
should try to picture to ourselves what the actual intellec- 
tual life must have been, of the author of such a series of 

15 romances. We should ask ourselves whether, fiUing and 
discharging so soberly and gracefully as he did the common 
functions of social man, it was not, nevertheless, impossible 
but that he must have passed most of his life in other 
worlds than ours ; and we ought hardly to think it a griev- 

200US circumstance that their bright visions should have 
left a dazzle sometimes on the eyes which he so gently 
reopened upon our prosaic realities. He had, on the whole, 
a command over the powers of his mind — I mean, that 
he could control and direct his thoughts and reflections 

25 with a readiness, firmness, and easy security of sway — 
be3^ond what I find it possible to trace in any other artisVs 
recorded character and history ; but he could not habitu- 
ally fling them into the region of dreams throughout a 
long series of years, and yet be expected to find a corre- 

3osponding satisfaction in bending them to the less agree- 
able considerations which the circumstances of any human 
being's practical lot in this world must present in abun- 
dance. The training to which he accustomed himself 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 189 

could not leave him as he was when he began. He must 
pay the penalty, as well as reap the glory of this life-long 
abstraction of reverie, this self-abandonment of Fairyland. 
This was for him the last year of many things ; among 
others, of Sybil Grey and the Abbotsford Hunt. Towards s 
the close of a hard run on his neighbour Gala's ground, 
he adventured to leap the Catrail — that venerable relic 
of the days of 

"Reged wide and fair Strath-Clyde." 

He was severely bruised and shattered ; and never after- 1© 
wards recovered the feehng of confidence, without which 
there can be no pleasure in horsemanship. He often talked 
of this accident with a somewhat superstitious moum- 
fulness. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Ruin of the Houses of Constable and Ballantyne — Death 
of Lady Scott — Publication of Woodstock — Journey 
to London and Paris — Publication of the Life of 
Napoleon — 1825-1827. 

James Ballantyne says, in a paper dictated from his 
deathbed : — "I need not here enlarge upon the unfortu- 
nate facility which, at the period of universal confidence 
and indulgence, our and other houses received from the 

5 banks. Suffice it to say that all our appearances of pros- 
perity, as well as those of Constable, and Hurst and 
Robinson, were merely shadows, and that from the 
moment the bankers exhibited symptoms of doubt, it 
might have been easy to discover what must be the ultimate 

lo result. During weeks, and even months, however, our 
house was kept in a state of very painful suspense. The 
other two, I have no doubt, saw the coming events more 
clearly, I must here say, that it was one of Sir Walter's 
weaknesses to shrink too much from looking evil in the 

15 face, and that he was apt to carry a great deal too far — 
'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' I do not think 
it was more than three weeks before the catastrophe that 
he became fully convinced it was impending — if indeed 
his feelings ever reached the length of conviction at all. 

20 Thus, at the last, his fortitude was very severely tried 
indeed." 

Mr. Ballantyne had never seen Scott's Diary, and its 
entries from the 20th November 1825 (when it begins) 

190 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 191 

until the middle of January 1826, are in perfect accord- 
ance with this statement. The first on the subject is in 
these terms: — ''Here is matter for a May morning but 
much fitter for a November one. The general distress 
in the city has affected H. and R., Constable's greats 
agents. Should they go, it is not likely that Constable 
can stand ; and such an event would lead to great distress 
and perplexity on the part of J. B. and myself. Thank 
God, I have enough to pay more than 20s. in the pound, 
taking matters at the very worst. But much inconven- lo 
ience must be the consequence. I had a lesson in 1814 
which should have done good ; but success and abundance 
erased it from my mind. But this is no time for journal- 
izing or moralizing either. Xecessit}^ is like a sourfaced 
cook-maid, and I a turn-spit she has flogged, ere now, till is 
he mounted his wheel. If Woodstock can be out by 
25th January it will do much, — and it is possible." 

Thus he continued to labour on at his romance ; from 
time to time arrested amidst his visions by some fresh 
omen of the coming reahty : but after suggesting or con- 20 
curring in the commercial measure that seemed feasible, 
immediately commanding his mind into oblivion of what- 
ever must prevent his pursuance of the task that depended 
solely on himself. That down to the 14th of December he 
was far indeed from having brought home to himself any- 25 
thing like the extent of his danger, is clear enough from 
the step recorded in that day's entry — namely, his con- 
senting to avail himself of the power he had retained of 
borrowing L. 10,000 on the lands of Abbotsford, and 
advancing that sum to the strugghng houses. Ballantyne 30 
hints that in his opinion both Constable and his London 
agents must have foreseen more clearly the issue of the 
struggle ; and it is certain that the only point in Constable's 



192 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

personal conduct which Scott afterwards considered him- 
self entitled to condemn and resent, was connected with 
these last advances. 

On the 18th of December he writes thus : — "If things 
5 go badly in London, the magic wand of the Unknown will 
be shivered in his grasp. He must then, faith, be termed 
the Too-well-known. The feast of fancy will be over with 
the feehng of independence. He shall no longer have the 
delight of waking in the morning with bright ideas in his 
lomind, hasten to commit them to paper, and count them 
montlily, as the means of planting such scaurs and pur- 
chasing such wastes ; replacing dreams of fiction by other 
prospective visions of walks by 

' Fountain heads, and pathless groves ; 
IS Places which pale passion loves.' 

This cannot be; but I may work substantial husbandry, 
i.e. write history, and such concerns. They will not be 
received with the same enthusiasm ; at least, I much doubt 
the general knowledge that an author must write for his 
2o bread, at least for improving his pittance, degrades him 
and his productions in the public eye. He falls into the 
second-rate rank of estimation : 

'While the harness sore galls, and the spurs his side goad, 
The high-mettled racer 's a hack on the road.' 

25 It is a bitter thought ; but if tears start at it, let them 
flow. My heart clings to the place I have created — there is 
scarce a tree on it that does not owe its being to me. — 
What a life mine has been ! — half-educated, almost 
wholly neglected, or left to myself ; stuffing my head with 

30 most nonsensical trash, and undervalued by most of my 
companions for a time; getting forward, and held a bold 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 193 

and a clever fellow, contrary to the opinion of eJa wfio"^ 
thought me a mere dreamer ; broken-hearted for two years ; 
my heart handsomely pieced again — but the crack will 
remain till my dying day. Rich and poor four or five 
times ; once on the verge of ruin, yet opened a new source 5- 
of wealth almost overflowing. Now to be broken in my 
pitch of pride, and nearly winged (unless good news should 
come :) because London chooses to be in an uproar, and in 
the tumult of bulls and bears, a poor inoffensive hon like 
myself is pushed to the wall. But what is to be the end lo 
of it ? God knows ; and so ends the catechism. — No- 
body in the end can lose a penny by me — that is one 
comfort. Men will think pride has had a fall. Let them 
indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall wall make 
them higher, or seem so at least. I have the satisfaction is 
to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to 
many, and to hope that some at least will forgive my 
transient wealth on account of the innocence of my in- 
tentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. Sad 
hearts, too, at Darnick, and in the cottages of Abbots- 20 
ford. I have half resolved never to see the place again. 
How could I tread ni}^ hall with such a diminished crest ? 
— how^ live a poor indebted man where I was once the 
wealthy, the honoured ? I was to have gone there on Satur- 
day in joy and prosperity to receive my friends. My dogs 25 
will w^ait for me in vain. It is fooHsh — but the thoughts 
of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more 
than any of the painful reflections I have put down. 
Poor things ! I must get them kind masters ! There 
may be yet those who, loving me, may love my dog be- 30 
cause it has been mine. I must end these gloomy fore- 
bodings, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men 
should meet distress. I feel my dogs' feet on my knees — 
o 



194 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere. This 
is nonsense, but it is what they would do could they know 
how things may be. — An odd thought strikes me — When 
I die, will the journal of these days be taken out of the 

5 ebony cabinet at Abbotsford, and read with wonder, 
that the well-seeming Baronet should ever have expe- 
rienced the risk of such a hitch ? — or will it be found in 
some obscure lodging-house, wliere the decayed son of 
chivalry had hung up his scutcheon, and where one or two 

loold friends will look grave, and whisper to each other, 
'Poor gentleman ' — 'a well-meaning man ' — ' nobody's 
enemy but his own ' — ^ thought his parts would never 
wear out' — 'family poorly left' — 'pity he took that 
foohsh title.' Who can answer this question? — Poor 

IS Will Laidlaw ! — poor Tom Purdie ! — such news will 
wring your hearts, and many a poor fellow's besides, to 
whom my prosperity was daily bread. 

"Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks the prospect 
of his own ruin in contemplating mine. I tried to enrich 

20 him indeed, and now ail — all is in the balance. He will 
have the Journal still, that is a comfort, for sure they can- 
not find a better editor. They — alas, who will they be — 
the unbekannten ohern ^ who may have to dispose of my 
all as they will ? Some hard-eyed banker — some of 

25 these men of millions ! — I have endeavoured to give 
vent to thoughts naturally so painful, by writing these 
notes — partly to keep them at bay by busying myself 
with the history of the French Convention. I thank God 
1 can do both with reasonable composure. I wonder how 

30 Anne will bear such an affliction. She is passionate, but 
stoux-hearted and courageous in important matters, 

1 Unbekannten obern — unknown rulers. 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 195 

though HTitable in trifles. I am glad Lockhart and his 
wife are gone. Why ? I cannot tell — but I am pleased 
to be left to my own regrets, without being melted by 
condolences, though of the most sincere and affectionate 
kind. — Half-past eight. I closed this book under the s 
impression of impending ruin. I open it an hour after 
(thanks be to God) w^th the strong hope that matters 
will be got over safely and honourably, in a mercantile 
sense. Cadell came at eight to communicate a letter from 
Hurst and Robinson, intimating they had stood the lo 
storm. I shall always think the better of Cadell for this — 
not merely because 'his feet are beautiful on the mountains 
who brings good tidings/ ° but because he shewed feehng — 
deep feehng, poor fellow. He, who I thought had no 
more than his numeration -table, and who, if he had had 15 
his whole counting-house full of sensibilit}^, had 3^et his 
wife and children to bestow it upon — I w^ill not forget 
this, if all keeps right. I love the virtues of rough-and- 
round men — the others are apt to escape in salt rheum, 
sal- volatile, and a white pocket handkerchief." 20 

Scott's Diary has — ''Edinburgh, January 16. — Came 
through cold roads to as cold news. Hurst and Robinson 
have suffered a bill to come back upon Constable, which I 
suppose infers the ruin of both houses. We shall soon 
see. Dined with the Skenes." — Mr. Skene assures me 25 
that he appeared that evening quite in his usual spirits, 
conversing on whatever topic was started as easily and 
gaily as if there had been no impending calamity ; but at 
parting he whispered — ''Skene, I have something to 
speak to you about ; be so good as to look in on me as you 30 
go to the Parliament-House to-morrow." When Skene 
called in Castle Street, about half-past nine o'clock next 
morning, he found Scott wTiting in his study. He rose, 



196 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

and said — ''My friend, give me a shake of your hand — 
mine is that of a beggar." He then told him that Ballan- 
tyne had just been with him, and that his ruin was certain 
and complete; explaining, briefly, the nature of his con- 
Snexion with the three houses, whose downfall must that 
morning be made pubhc. He added — "Don't fancy 
I am going to stay at home to brood idly on what can't 
be helped. I was at work upon Woodstock when you came 
in, and I shall take up the pen the moment I get back 

lofrom Court. I mean to dine with you again on Sunday, 
and hope then to report progress to some purpose." — 
When Sunday came, he reported accordingly, that in spite 
of all the numberless interruptions of meetings and con- 
ferences with his partner and men of business — to say 

IS nothing of his anxieties on account of his wife and daugh- 
ter — he had written a chapter of his novel every inter- 
vening day. And the Diary gives the precise detail. 
His exertions, he there says, were suspended for the 17th 
and 18th; but in the course of the 19th, 20th, and 21st, 

20 he wrote 38 pages of his novel — such pages that 70 of 
them made ''half a volume of the usual size." 

The reader may be curious to see what account Ballan- 
tyne's memorandum gives of that dark announcement on 
the morning of Tuesday the 17th. It is as follows : — 

25 "On the evening of the 16th, I received from Mr. Cadell 
a distinct message putting me in possession of the truth. 
I called immediately in Castle Street, but found Sir Walter 
had gained an unconscious respite by being engaged out at 
dinner. It was between eight and nine next morning that 

30 1 made the final communication. No doubt he was greatly 
stunned — but, upon the whole, he bore it with wonderful 
fortitude. He then asked — 'Well, what is the actual 
step we must first take? I suppose we must do some- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 197 

thing?' I reminded him that two or three thousand 
pounds were due that day, so that we had onl^^ to do what 
we must do — refuse payment — to bring the disclosure 
sufficiently before the w^orld. He took leave of me with 
these striking words — ' Well, James, depend upon that, 5 
I will never forsake you.' " 

In the course of that unhappy yet industrious week. 
Sir Walter's situation as Ballantyne's partner, became 
universally known. Mr. Ballantyne, as an individual, 
had no choice but to resolve on the usual course of a com- 10 
mercial man unable to meet engagements: but Scott 
from the first moment determined to avoid, if by his utmost 
efforts it could be avoided, the necessit}^ of participating 
in such steps. He immediately placed his whole affairs 
in the hands of tliree trustees (James Jollie, W.S., Alex. 15 
Monypenny, W.S., and John Gibson, W.S.), all men of 
the highest honour and of great professional experience; 
and declined every offer of private assistance. These 
were very numerous : — his eldest son and his daughter- 
in-law eagerl}^ tendered the whole fortune at their disposal, 20 
and the principal banks of Edinburgh, especially the house 
of Sir William Forbes & Co., which was the one most 
deeply involved in Ballantyne's obligations, sent part- 
ners of the first consideration, who w^ere his personal 
friends, to offer liberal additional accommodation. What, 25 
y I think, affected him most of all, was a letter from Mr. 
Poole, his daughters' harp-master, offering L.500, — 
''probably," says the Diary, "his all." From London, 
also, he received various kind communications. Among 
others, one tendering an instant advance of L.30,000 — 30 
a truly munificent message, conveyed through a distin- 
guished channel, but the source of which was never re- 
vealed to him, nor to me until some j^ears after his death, 



198 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

and even then under conditions of secrecy. To all, his 
answer was the same. And within a few days he had 
reason to believe that the creditors would, as a body, 
assent to let things go in the course which he and his 
5 trustees suggested. 

His Diary has this entry for the 24th January : — 
''If I am hard pressed, and measures used against me, 
I must use all means of legal defence, and subscribe 
myself bankrupt in a petition for sequestration. It is the 

lo course one should, at any rate, have advised a chent to 
take. But for this I would, in a Court of Honour, deserve 
to lose my spurs. No, — if they permit me, I will be their 
vassal for life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to 
find diamonds (or what may sell for such) to make good 

15 my engagements, not to enrich myself. And this from no 
reluctance to be called the Insolvent, which I probably 
am, but because I will not put out of the power of my 
creditors the resources, mental or literary, which yet 
remain to me." 

2o Jan. 26. — ''Gibson comes with a joyful face, announc- 
ing that almost all the creditors had agreed to a private 
trust. This is handsome and confidential, and must 
warm my best efforts to get them out of the scrape. I 
will not doubt — to doubt is to lose. Sir WilUam Forbes 

25 took the chair, and behaved, as he has ever done, with the 
generosity of ancient faith and early friendship. That 
House is more deeply concerned than most. In what 
scenes have Sir William and I not borne share together ! 
desperate and almost bloody affrays, rivalries, deep 

30 drinking matches, and finally, with the kindliest feelings 
on both sides, somewhat separated by his retiring much 
within the bosom of his family, and I moving Uttle be- 
yond mine. It is fated our planets should cross, though, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 199 

and that at the periods most interesting for me. Down — 
down — a hundred thoughts." 

There soon, however, emerged new difficulties. It 
would indeed have been very wonderful if all the creditors 
of three companies, whose concerns were inextricably s 
intertangled, had at once adopted the views of the meet- 
ing, composed entirely of eminent citizens of Edinburgh, 
over which Sir WilHam Forbes presided on the 26th of 
January ; nor, it is proper to add, was Scott himself aware, 
until some days later, of the extent to which the debts of lo 
the two houses of Constable and Hurst exceeded their 
assets; circumstances necessarily of the greatest impor- 
tance to the holders of Ballantyne's paper. In point of 
fact, it turned out that the obligations of the three firms 
had, by what is termed cross-rankings, reached respec- 15 
tively sums far beyond the calculations of any of the par- 
ties. On the full revelation of this state of things, some of 
the printers' creditors felt great disinchnation to close 
with Scott's proposals ; and there ensued a train of harass- 
ment, the detail of which must be left in his Diary, but 20 
which was finally terminated according to his own 
original, and really most generous suggestion. 

The da}^ of calamity revealed the fact that James Bal- 
lantyne personally possessed no assets whatever. The 
claims against Sir Walter, as the sole really responsible 25 
partner in the printing firm, and also as an individual, 
settled into a sum of about L. 130,000. On much heavier 
debts Constable & Co. paid ultimately 2s. 9d. in the pound ; 
Hurst & Robinson about Is. 3d. The Ballantyne firm had 
as yet done nothing to prevent their following the same 30 
line of conduct. It might still have allowed itself (and not 
James Ballantyne merely as an individual) to be declared 
bankrupt, and obtained a speedy discharge, Uke these 



200 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

booksellers, from all its obligations. But for Scott's 
being a partner, the whole affair must have been settled 
in a very short time. If he could have at all made up his 
mind to let commercial matters take the usual commercial 

5 coarse, the creditors of the firm would have brought into 
the market whatever property, hterary or otherwise, 
Scott at the hour of failure possessed; they would have 
had a right to his hferent of Abbotsford, among other 
things — and to his reversionary interest in the estate, 

lo in case either his eldest son or his daughter-in-law should 
die without leaving issue, and thus void the provisions of 
their marriage-contract. All this being disposed of, the 
result would have been a dividend very far superior to 
what the creditors of Constable and Hurst received; 

IS and in return, the partners in the printing firm w^ould have 
been left at liberty to reap for themselves the profits of 
their future exertions. Things were, however, complicated 
in consequence of the transfer of Abbotsford in January 
1825. Some crecUtors now had serious thoughts of con- 

2o testing the vahdity of that transaction ; but a little reflec- 
tion and examination satisfied them that nothing could be 
gained by such an attempt. On the other hand, Sir Walter 
felt that he had done wrong in placing any part of his prop- 
erty beyond the reach of his creditors, by entering into 

25 that marriage-contract without a previous most deUber- 
ate examination into the state of his responsibilities. He 
must have felt in this manner, though I have no sort of 
doubt, that the result of such an examination in January 
1825, if accompanied by an instant calling in of all counter- 

^obills, would have been to leave him at perfect liberty to 
do all that he did upon that occasion. However that may 
have been, and whatever may have been his delicacy 
respecting this point, he persisted in regarding the em- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 201 

barrassment of his commercial firm with the feeUngs not 
of a merchant but of a gentleman. He thought that 
by devoting the rest of his life to the service of his credi- 
tors, he could, in the upshot, pay the last farthing he 
owed them. They (with one or two exceptions) ap- s 
plauded his honourable intentions and resolutions, and 
partook, to a certain extent, in the self-reliance of their 
debtor. Nor had they miscalculated as to their interest. 
Nor had Sir Walter calculated wrongly. He paid the pen- 
alty of health and hfe, but he saved his honour and his lo 
self-respect : — 

"The glory dies not, and the grief is past." ^ 

As to the difficulty that occurred in February, a single 
extract from his Diary must here suffice. On the 16th 
he writes thus: — " 'Misfortune's growhng bark' comes 15 
louder and louder. By assigning my whole property to 
trustees for behoof of creditors, with two works in progress 
and nigh pubhcation, and with all my future literary 
labours, I conceived I was bringing into the field a large 
fund of payment, which could not exist without my exer- 20 
tions, and that thus far I was entitled to a corresponding 
degree of indulgence. I therefore supposed, on seUing 
tliis house, and various other property, and on receiving 
the price of Woodstock and Napoleon, that they would 
give me leisure to make other exertions, and be content 25 
with the rents of Al^botsford, without attempting a sale. 
But Gibson last night came in after dinner, and gave me to 
understand that the Bank of Scotland see this in a differ- 
ent point of view, and consider my contribution of the 
produce of past, present, and future labours, as compen- 30 

1 Sonnet on Scott's death, by Sir E. Brydges. 



202 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

sated i7i full by their accepting of the trust-deed, instead 
of pursuing the mode of sequestration, and placing me 
in the Gazette. They therefore expect the trustees to 
commence a lawsuit to reduce the marriage-settlement 

5 which settles the estate upon Walter ; thus loading me with 
a most expensive suit, and I suppose selling hbrary and 
whatever else they can lay hold on. Now this seems, 
unequal measure, and would besides of itself totally de- 
stroy any power of fancy — of genius, if it deserves the 

10 name, which may remain to me. A man cannot write 
in the House of Correction; and this species of peine 
forte et dyre° which is threatened, would render it impos- 
sible for one to help himself or others. So I told Gibson 
I had my mind made up as far back as the 24th of January^ 

15 not to suffer myself to be harder pressed than law would 
press me. If they take the sword of the law, I must lay 
hold of the shield. If they are determined to consider 
me as an irretrievable bankrupt, they have no title to 
object to my setthng upon the usual terms which the 

20 statute requires. They probably are of opinion, that 
I will be ashamed to do this by applying publicly for a 
sequestration. Now, my feelings are different. I am 
ashamed to owe debts I cannot pay ; but I am not ashamed 
of being classed with those to whose rank I belong. The 

25 disgrace is in being an actual bankrupt, not in being made 
a legal one. I had like to have been too hasty in this 
matter. I must have a clear understanding that I am to 
be benefited or indulged in some way, if I bring in two 
such funds as those works in progress, worth certainly 

3ofrom L.10,000 to L.15,000." 

It was by and bye settled that he should be left in the 
undisturbed possession of Abbotsford, on his pledging 
himself to dispose immediately of all his other property, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 203 

of what kind soever, for the behoof of the creditors — to 
limit his personal expenses henceforth within his official 
salary — and, continuing his literary labour with his best 
diligence, to pay in all its profits until the debt should be 
wholly obhterated. Excepting from a single London 5 
Jew, a creditor originally of Hurst's, no practical inter- 
ference with this arrangement was ever subsequently 
threatened. 

When the Court of Session was to rise for the spring 
vacation he had to take farewell of his house in Castle lo 
Street. Henceforth, his family were to stay always, as he 
designed, in the country — and a small hired lodging was 
to suffice for himself when his duty called him to be in 
Edinburgh. 

Sir Walter's Diar}^ begins to be clouded with a darker 15 
species of distress than mere loss of wealth could bring to 
his spirit. His darling grandson is sinking at a distance 
from him under incurable disease. At home the misfor- 
tunes against which his manhood struggled with stern 
energy were encountered by his affectionate wife under the 20 
disadvantages of enfeebled health, and it seems but too 
evident that mental pain and mortification had a great 
share in hurr^dng her ailments to a fatal end. Neverthe- 
less, all his afflictions do not seem to have interrupted for 
more than a day or two his usual course of labour. With 25 
rare exceptions he appears, all through this trying period, 
to have finished his daily task — thirty printed pages of 
Woodstock — until that novel was completed ; or, if he 
paused in it, he gave a similar space of time to some minor 
production ; such as his paper on the Life of Kemble. 30 
He also corresponded much as usual (notwithstanding 
all he says about indolence on that score) with his absent 
friends ; and I need scarcely add, that his duties as Sheriff 



204 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

claimed many hours every week. The picture of resolu- 
tion and industry which this portion of his Journal pre- 
sents, is certainly as remarkable as the boldest imagina- 
tion could have conceived. 
S " Abbotsford, March 17. — A letter from Lockhart. 
My worst augury is verified ; — the medical people think 
poor Johnnie is losing strength ; he is gone with his mother 
to Brighton. The bitterness of this probably impending 
calamity is extreme. The child was almost too good for 

lo this world ; — beautiful in features ; and though spoiled 
by every one, having one of the sweetest tempers as well 
as the quickest intellect I ever saw; a sense of humour 
quite extraordinary in a child, and, owing to the general 
notice which was taken of him, a great deal more informa- 

istion than suited his years. The poor dear love had so 
often a slow fever, that when it pressed its little lips to 
mine, I always foreboded to my own heart what all I 
fear are now aware of. 

"March 19. — Lady S., the faithful and true compan- 

2o ion of my fortunes, good and bad, for so many years, has, 
but with difficulty, been prevailed on to see Dr. Aber- 
crombie, and his opinion is far from favourable. Her 
asthmatic complaints are fast terminating in hydropsy, 
as I have long suspected ; yet the announcement of the 

25 truth is overwhelming. They are to stay a little longer 
in town to try the effects of a new medicine. On Wednes- 
day, they propose to return hither — a new affliction, 
where there was enough before; yet her constitution is 
so good, that if she will be guided by advice, things may 

30 be yet amehorated. God grant it ! for really these mis- 
fortunes come too close upon each other. 

"March 28. — We have now been in solitude for some 
time — myself nearly totally so, excepting at meals. 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 205 

One is tempted to ask himself, knocking at the door of his 
own heart, Do you love this extreme loneliness? I can 
answer conscientiously, / do. The love of solitude was 
with me a passion of early youth; when in my teens, I 
used to fly from company to indulge in visions and airys 
castles of n\y own, the disposal of ideal wealth, and the 
exercise of imaginary power. This feehng prevailed even 
till I was eighteen, when love and ambition awakening 
with other passions, threw me more into society, from 
which I have, however, at times withdrawn myself, and lo 
have been always even glad to do so. I have risen from 
a feast satiated ; and unless it be one or two persons of very 
strong intellect, or whose spirits and good humour amuse 
me, I wish neither to see the high, the low, nor the middhng 
class of societ}^ This is a feeling wdthout the least tinge is 
of misanthropy, which I always consider as a kind of 
blaspheni}^ of a shocking description. If God bears with 
the very worst of us, we may surely endure each other. 
If thrown into society, I always have, and always will 
endeavour to bring pleasure with me, at least to shew 20 
willingness to please. But for all this, 'I had rather live 
alone,' and I wish my appointment, so convenient other- 
wise, did not require my going to Edinburgh. But 
this must be, and in my little lodging I shall be lonely 
enough. 25 

"April 3. — I have the extraordinary and gratifying 
news that Woodstock is sold for L.8228 ; all ready money 
— a matchless sale for less than three months' work." 
[The reader will understand that, the novel being sold for 
the behoof of J. B. and Co.'s creditors, this sum includes 30 
the cost of printing the first edition, as well as paper.] 
''If Napoleon does as well, or near it, it will put the trust 
affairs in high flourish. Four or five years of leisure and 



206 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

industry would, with such success, amply replace my losses. 
I have a curious fancy ; I will go set two or three acorns, 
and judge by their success in growing whether I shall suc- 
ceed in clearing my way or not. I have a little toothache 
5 keeps me from working much to-day — besides I sent off 
copy for Napoleon." 

The price received for Woodstock shews what eager com- 
petition had been called forth among the booksellers, when, 
after the lapse of several years, Constable's monopoly of 

loSir Walter's novels was abohshed by their common ca- 
lamity. The interest excited, not only in Scotland and 
England, but all over civilized Europe, by the news of 
Scott's misfortunes, must also have had its influence in 
quickening this commercial rivalry. The reader need 

IS hardly be told, that the first meeting of James Ballantyne 
& Company's creditors witnessed the transformation, a 
month before darkly prophesied, of the ''Great Unknown" 
into the "Too-well-known." Even for those who had 
long ceased to entertain any doubt as to the main source 

20 at least of the Waverley romances, there would have been 
something stirring in the first confession of the author; 
but it in fact included the avowal, that he had stood alone 
in the work of creation ; and when the mighty claim came 
in the same breath with the announcement of personal 

25 ruin, the effect on the community of Edinburgh was elec- 
trical. It is, in my opinion, not the least striking feature 
in his Diary, that it contains no allusion (save the ominous 
one of 18th December) to this long withheld revelation. 
He notes his painful anticipation of returning to the 

30 Parliament-House — monstrari digito° — as an insolvent. 
It does not seem even to have occurred to him, that when 
he appeared there the morning after his creditors had heard 
his confession, there could not be many men in the place 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 207 

but must gaze on his familiar features with a mixture of 
curiosity, admiration, and sympathy, of which a hero 
in the moment of victory might have been proud — 
which might have swelled the heart of a martyr as he was 
bound to the stake. The universal feeling was, I believe, s 
much what the late amiable and accomplished Earl of 
Dudley expressed to Mr. Morritt when these news reached 
them at Brighton. — ''Scott ruined!" said he, "the 
author of Waverle}' ruined ! Good God ! let every man to 
whom he has given months of delight give him a sixpence, lo 
and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than Roths- 
child!" 

It is no wonder that the book, which it was known he 
had been writing during this crisis of distress, should have 
been expected with solicitude. Shall we find him, asked 15 
thousands, to have been master truly of his genius in 
the moment of this ordeal? Shall we trace anything of 
his own experiences in the construction of his imaginary 
personages and events ? — I know not how others inter- 
preted various passages in Woodstock, but there were 20 
not a few that carried deep meaning for such of Scott's 
own friends as were acquainted with, not his pecuniar}^ 
misfortune alone, but the drooping health of his wife, 
and the consolation afforded him by the dutiful devotion 
of his daughter Anne, in whose character and demeanour 25 
a change had occurred exactly similar to that painted 
in poor Alice Lee: "A light joyous air, with something 
of a humourous expression, which seemed to be looking 
for amusement, had vanished before the touch of afflic- 
tion, and a calm melancholy supplied its place, which 30 
seemed on the watch to administer comfort to others." 
In several mottoes, and other scraps of verse, the curious 
reader wiU find similar traces of the facts and feelings 



208 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

recorded in the author's Diary. As to the novel itself, 
though none can pretend to class it in the very highest 
rank of his works, since we feel throughout the effects of the 
great fundamental error, likened by a contemporary critic 
5 to that of the writer who should lay his scene at Rome 
immediately after the battle of Philippi, and introduce 
Brutus as the survivor in that conflict, and Cicero as his 
companion in victory; yet even this censor is forced to 
allow that Woodstock displays certain excellencies, not 

10 exemplified in all the author's fictions, and which attest, 
more remarkably than any others could have done, the 
complete self-possession of the mind when composing it. 
The success of the book was great : large as the price was, 
its publishers had no reason to repent their bargain; 

15 and of course the rapid receipt of such a sum as L.8000, 
the product of hardly three months' labour, highly gratified 
the body of creditors, whose debtor had devoted to them 
whatever labour his health should henceforth permit him 
to perform. 

20 The progress of the domestic story will be best given by 
a few more extracts from the Diary : — 

"May 6. — The same scene of hopeless (almost) and 
unavailing anxiety. Still welcoming me with a smile, 
and asserting she is better. I fear the disease is too deeply 

25 entwined with the principles of life. I am a tolerable 
Stoic, but preach to myself in vain. 

'Are these things, then, necessities? 
Then let us meet them like necessities.' 

"May 11. — Charlotte was unable to take leave of me, 

30 being in a sound sleep after a very indifferent night. 

Perhaps it was as well. Emotion might have hurt her; 

and nothing I could have expressed would have been worth 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 209 

the risk. I have foreseen, for two j^ears and more, that 
this menaced event could not be far distant. I have 
seen plainly, within the last two months, that recovery was 
hopeless. And yet to part with the companion of twent}^- 
nine years, when so very ill — that I did not, could not 5 
foresee. It withers mj^ heart to thiiik of it, and to recol- 
lect that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence and 
counsel from that ear to which all might be safelv con- 
fided." 

"May 15. — Received the melancholy intelligence that 10 
all is over at Abbotsford. 

"Abbotsford, May 16. — She died at nine in the morn- 
ing, after being very ill for two daj^s — easy at last. I 
arrived here late last night. Anne is worn out, and has had 
hysterics, which returned on my arrival. Her broken 15 
accents were like those of a child — the language as well as 
the tones broken, but in the most gentle voice of submis- 
sion. ' Poor mamma — never return again — gone for 
ever — a better place.' Then, when she came to herself, 
she spoke with sense, freedom, and strength of mind, till 20 
her weakness returned. It would have been inexpressibly 
moving to me as a stranger — what was it then to the 
father and the husband ? For myself, I scarce know how 
I feel — sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, sometimes as 
weak as the water that breaks on it. I am as alert at think- 25 
ing and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet, when I 
contrast w^hat this place now is, with what it has been not 
long smce, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, 
deprived of my family — all but poor Anne; an impov- 
erished, an embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer of my 30 
thoughts and counsels, wiio could always talk down my 
sense of the calamitous apprehensions which break the 
heart that must bear them alone. — Even her foibles w^ere 



210 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

of service to me, by giving me things to think of beyond 
my weary self-reflections. 

''I will go to town on Monday and resume my labours. 
Being now of a grave nature, they cannot go against the 

5 general temper of my feelings, and in other respects the 
exertion, as far as I am concerned, will do me good ; besides 
I must reestabhsh my fortune for the sake of the children, 
and of my own character. I have not leisure to indulge 
the disabling and discouraging thoughts that press on me. 

lo Were an enemy coming upon my house, would I not do my 
best to fight, although oppressed in spirits? and shall a 
similar despondency prevent me from mental exertion? 
It shall not, by Heaven ! This day and to-morrow I give 
to the currency of the ideas which have of late occupied 

15 my mind, and with Monday they shall be mingled at least 
with other thoughts and cares. — " 

In October he resolved to make a journey to London 
and Paris, in both which capitals he had reason to expect 
important material would be submitted to him as the 

20 biographer of Napoleon. His expedition was a very 
seasonable relief ; nor was he disappointed as to its direct 
object. 

Formerly, however great the quantity of work he put 
through his hands, his evenings were almost always 

25 reserved for the light reading of an elbow-chair, or the 
enjoyment of his family and friends. Now he seemed 
to grudge every minute that was not spent at the desk. 
The little that he read of new books, or for mere amuse- 
ment, was done by snatches in the course of his meals; 

30 and to walk, when he could walk at all, to the Parliament 
House, and back again, through the Prince's Street Gar- 
dens, was his only exercise and his only relaxation. Every 
ailment, of whatever sort, ended in aggravating his lame- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 211 

ness; and, perhaps, the severest test his philosophy en- 
countered was the feehng of bodily helplessness that from 
week to week crept upon him. The winter, to make bad 
worse, was a very cold and stormy one. The growing 
sluggishness of his blood shewed itself in chilblains, not 5 
only on the feet but the fingers, and his handwriting 
becomes more and more cramped and confused. 

He says on the 30th of December — ''Wrote hard. 
Last day of an eventful year ; much evil — and some good, 
but especially the courage to endure what Fortune sends, ic 
without becoming a pipe for her fingers. It is not the last 
day of the year ; but to-morrow being Sundaj^, we hold our 
festival to-daj'. The Fergussons came, and we had the 
usual appliances of mirth and good cheer. Yet our party, 
hke the chariot-wheels of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, dragged 15 
heavily. — It must be allowed that the regular recurrence 
of annual festivals among the same individuals has, as 
life advances, something in it that is melanchol3^ We 
meet like the survivors of some perilous expedition, 
wounded and weakened ourselves, and looking through 20 
diminished ranks to think of those who are no more. 
Yet where shall we fl}' from vain repining ? — or why 
should we give up the comfort of seeing our friends, because 
they can no longer be to us, or we to them, what we once 
were to each other ? " 25 

That season was fiu-ther enlivened by one public dinner, 
and this, though very briefly noticed in Scott's Diary, 
occupied a large space in public attention at the time, and, 
I believe I may add, several columns in every newspaper 
in Europe. His good friend William Murray, manager 30 
of the Edinburgh Theatre, invited him to preside at the 
first festival of a charitable fund for decayed performers. 
He agreed, and on Friday the 23d February took the chair, 



212 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

being supported by the Earl of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, 
Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Admiral Adam, Robert Dundas 
of Arniston, Peter Robertson, and many other personal 
friends. Lord Meadowbank had come on short notice, 

5 and was asked abruptly on his arrival to take a toast which 
had been destined for a noble person who had not been 
able to appear. He knew that this was the first public 
dinner at which the object of the toast had appeared 
since his misfortunes, and taking him aside in the ante- 

lo room, asked him whether he would now consider it indeli- 
cate to hazard a distinct reference to the parentage of the 
Waverley Novels. Sir Walter smiled, and said, "Do 
just as you like — only don't say much abaut so old a 
story." — In the course of the evening the Judge rose 

IS accordingly, and said — 

"I would beg leave to propose a toast — the health of 
one of the Patrons. The clouds have been dispelled — 
the darkness visible has been cleared away — and the 
Great Unknown — the minstrel of our native land — 

20 the mighty magician who has rolled back the current of 
time, and conjured up before our living senses the men 
and the manners of days which have long passed away, 
stands revealed to the eyes and the hearts of his affec- 
tionate and admiring countrymen. We owe to him, as a 

25 people, a large and heavy debt of gratitude. He it is who 
has opened to foreigners the grand and characteristic 
beauties of our country ; — it is to him that we owe that 
our gallant ancestors and illustrious patriots have obtained 
a fame no longer confined to the boundaries of a remote 

30 and comparatively obscure country — he it is who has 
conferred a new reputation on our national character, 
and bestowed on Scotland an imperishable name, were it 
only by her having given birth to himself. I propose 
the health of Sir Walter Scott." 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 213 

Long before Lord Meadowbank ceased speaking, the 
company had got upon chairs and tables, and the storm 
of applause that ensued was deafening. When they 
recovered from the first fever. Sir Walter spoke as fol- 
lows : — 5 

"I certainly did not think, in coming here to-day, that 
I should have the task of acknowledging before 300 gentle- 
men, a secret which, considering that it was communi- 
cated to more than twenty people, has been remarkably 
well kept. I am now at the bar of my country, and may lo 
be understood to be on trial before Lord Meadowbank as 
an offender ; and so quietly did all who were airt and pairt° 
conduct themselves, that I am sure that, were the pa7iel° 
now to stand on his defence, every impartial jury would 
bring in a verdict of Not Proven. I am willing, however, 15 
to plead guilty — nor shall I detain the Court bj^ a long 
explanation why my confession has been so long deferred. 
Perhaps caprice might have a considerable share in the 
matter. I have now to say, however, that the merits of 
these works, if they had any, and their faults, are all 20 
entirely imputable to myself. Like another Scottish 
criminal of more consequence, one Macbeth, 

' I am afraid to think what I have done : 
Look on't again I dare not.' — 

— I have thus far unbosomed myself, and I know that my 25 
confession will be reported to the public. I mean, then, 
seriously to state, that when I say I am the author, I mean 
the total and undivided author. With the exception of 
quotations, there is not a single word that was not derived 
from myself, or suggested in the course of my reading. 30 
The wand is now broken, and the book buried. You will 
allow me further to say, with Prospero, it is your breath 
that has filled my sails, and to crave one single toast in 
the capacity of tiae author of these novels. I would fain 



214 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

dedicate a bumper to the health of one who has repre- 
sented several of those characters, of which I had endeav- 
oured to give the skeleton, with a truth and liveliness for 
which I may well be grateful. I beg leave to propose the 
S health of my friend Bailie Nicol Jarvie — and I am sure, 
that when the author of Waverley and Rob Roy drinks 
to Nicol Jarvie, it will be received with the just applause 
to which that gentleman has always been accustomed, — 
nay, that you will take care that on the present occasion 

lo it shall be pro — di — gi — ous ! " (Long and vehement 
applause.) 

Mr. Mackay. — "My conscience! My worthy father 
the deacon could never have believed that his son would 
hae sic a compliment paid to him by the Great Unknown ! " 

IS Sir Walter Scott. — "The Small Known now, Mr. 
Bailie!" 

We now reach the completion of that severe task ^ 
the Life of Napoleon : and following instantly, the com- 
mencement of the charming Tales of a Grandfather. 

20 The Life of Buonaparte, then, was at last published 
about the middle of June 1827. Two years had elapsed 
since Scott began it ; but, by a careful comparison of dates, 
I have arrived at the conclusion that, his expeditions to 
Ireland and Paris, and the composition of novels and 

25 critical miscellanies, being duly allowed for, the historical 
task occupied hardly more than twelve months. The 
book was closely printed ; in fact, if it had been printed on 
the original model of his novels, the life of Buonaparte 
would have filled from thirteen to fourteen volumes : the 

30 work of one twelvemonth — done in the midst of pain, 
sorrow, and ruin. 

The lofty impartiality with which Scott treats the per- 
sonal character of Buonaparte, was of course sure to make 
all ultra-pohticians both at home and abroad condemn his 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 215 

representation ; and an equall}^ general and better founded 
exception was taken to the lavish imagery of his historical 
style. He despised the former clamom- — to the latter he 
bowed submissive. He could not, whatever character he 
might wish to assume, cease to be one of the greatest of 5 
poets. Metaphorical illustrations, which men born with 
prose in their souls hunt for painfully, and find only to 
murder, were to him the natural and necessarj^ offspring 
and playthings of ever-teeming fancy. He could not 
write a note to his printer — he could not speak to himself 10 
in his Diary — without introducing them. Few will say 
that his historical style is, on the whole, excellent — none 
that it is perfect ; but it is completely unaffected, and 
therefore excites nothing of the unpleasant feeling with 
which we consider the elaborate artifices of a far greater 15 
historian — the greatest that our literature can boast — 
Gibbon. The rapiditj^ of the execution infers many inac- 
curacies as to minor matters of fact ; but it is nevertheless 
true that no inaccuracy affecting the character of the book 
as a fair record of great events, has to this hour been de- 20 
tected by the malevolent ingenuity of Jacobin or Buona- 
partist. 

Woodstock, as we have seen, placed upwards of L.8000 
in the hands of Sir Walter's creditors. The Napoleon 
(first and second editions) produced for them a sum which 25 
it even now startles me to mention, — L. 18,000. As by 
the time the historical work was published, nearly half of 
the First Series of Chronicles of the Canongate had been 
written, it is ob\'ious that the amount to which Scott's 
literary industry, from the close of 1825, to the 10th of 30 
June 1827, had diminished his debt, cannot be stated at 
less than L. 28,000. Had health been spared him, how 
soon must he have freed himself from all his encumbrances ! 



CHAPTER XV 

Domestic Life — Publication of the Chronicles of the 
Canongate and Tales of a Grandfather — Fair Maid 
of Perth — Anne of Geierstein — Success of the Novels — 
1827-1829. 

When the Court released him, and he returned to Ab- 
botsford, his family did what they could to keep him to his 
ancient evening habits ; but nothing was so useful as the 
presence of his invalid grandson. The poor child was at 
sthis time so far restored as to be able to sit his pony 
again; and .Sir Walter, who had conceived, the very 
day he finished Napoleon, the notion of putting together 
a series of Tales on the history of Scotland, somewhat 
in the manner of Mr. Croker's on that of England, rode 

10 daily among the- woods with his "Hugh Littlejohn," 
and told the story, and ascertained that it suited the 
comprehension of boyhood, before he reduced it to 
writing. Sibyl Grey had been dismissed in consequence 
of the accident at the Catrail ; and he had now stooped his 

15 pride to a sober, steady creature, of very humble blood ; 
dun, with black mane and legs; by name Douce Davie, 
alias the Covenanter. This, the last of his steeds, by the 
way, had been previously in the possession of a jolly old 
laird near Peebles, and acquired a distinguished reputa- 

20 tion by its skill in carrying him home safely when drunk. 
Douce Davie, on such occasions, accommodated himself 

216 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 217 

to the swerving balance of his rider with such nice dis- 
crimination, that on the laird's death the country people 
expected a vigorous competition for the sagacious animal ; 
but the club-companions of the defunct stood off to a man 
when it was understood that the Sheriff coveted thes 
succession. 

He received about this time a \\svi from Mr. J. L. 
Adolphus ; who had not seen him since 1824 — and says — 

"Calamity had borne hea\aly upon Sir Walter in the 
interval ; but the painful and anxious feeling with w^hich lo 
a friend is approached for the first tim.e under such cir- 
cumstances, gave way at once to the unassumed serenity of 
his manner. There were some signs of age about him 
which the mere lapse of time would scarcely have accounted 
for ; but his spirits were abated onl}^, not broken ; if they 15 
had sunk, they had sunk equably and gently. It was a 
dechning, not a clouded sun. I do not remember any 
reference to the afflictions he had suffered, except once, 
when, speaking of his Life of Napoleon, he said in a quiet 
but affecting tone, ' I could have done it better, if I could 20 
have written at more leisure, and with a mind more at 
ease.' One morning a party was made to breakfast at 
Chiefswood ; and any one who on that occasion looked at 
and heard Sir Walter Scott, in the midst of his children and 
grandchildren and friends, must have rejoiced to see that 25 
life still yielded him a store of pleasures, and that liis heart 
was as open to their influences as ever. I was much struck 
by a few words which fell from him on this subject a short 
time afterwards. After mentioning an accident which 
had spoiled the promised pleasure of a visit to his daughter 30 
in London, he then added — ' I have had as much happi- 
ness in my time as most men, and I must not complain 
now.' I said, that whatever had been his share of hap- 



218 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

piness, no man could have laboured better for it. He 
answered — ' I consider the capacity to labour as part of 
the happiness I have enjoyed.' " 

Such was his life in Autumn 1827. Before I leave the 

5 period, 1 must note how greatly I admired the manner in 
which all his dependents appeared to have met the reverse 
of his fortunes — a reverse which inferred very consider- 
able alteration in the circumstances of every one of them. 
The butler, Dalghesh, had been told when the distress 

10 came, that a servant of his class would no longer be re- 
quired — but the man burst into tears, and said, rather 
than go he would stay without any wages : So he remained 
— and instead of being the easy chief of a large establish- 
ment, was now doing half the work of the house, at prob- 

15 ably half his former salary. Old Peter, who had been for 
five-and-twenty years a dignified coachman, was now 
ploughman in ordinary, only putting his horses to the 
carriage upon high and rare occasions ; and so on with all 
the rest that remained of the ancient train. And all, to 

2o my view, seemed happier than they had ever done before. 
Their good conduct had given every one of them a new 
elevation in his own mind — and yet their demeanour had 
gained, in place of losing, in simple humility of observance. 
The great loss was that of William Laidlaw, for whom (the 

25 estate being all but a fragment in the hands of the trustees 
and their agent) there was now no occupation here. The 
cottage, which his taste had converted into a loveable re- 
treat, had found a rent-paying tenant ; and he was living 
a dozen miles off on the farm of a relation in the Vale of 

30 Yarrow. Every week, however, he came down to have a 
ramble with Sir Walter over their old haunts — to hear 
how the pecuniary atmosphere was darkening or brighten- 
ing ; and to read in every face at Abbotsford that it could 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 219 

never be itself again until circumstances should permit his 
reestablishment at Kaeside. 

The first series of Chronicles of the Canongate — 
(which title supplanted that of The Canongate Miscel- 
lany or Traditions of the Sanctuary) — was published 5 
early in the winter. The contents were, the Highland 
Widow, the Two Drovers, and the Surgeon's Daughter — 
all in their stjdes excellent, except that the Indian part of 
the last does not well harmonize with the rest ; and certain 
preliminary chapters which were generally considered as 10 
still better than the stories they introduce. 

These Chronicles were not received with exceeding 
favour at the time; and Sir Walter was a good deal dis- 
couraged. Indeed, he seems to have been with some diffi- 
culty persuaded bj^ Cadell and Ballantjme that it would 15 
not do for him to ''lie fallow" as a novelist; and then, 
when he in compliance with their entreaties began a Second 
Canongate Series, they were both disappointed with his 
MS., and told him their opinions so plainly that his good- 
nature was sharply tried. The Tales which they disap- 20 
proved of, were those of My Aunt iVIargaret's Mirror, and 
the Laird's Jock ; he consented to lay them aside, and be- 
gan St. Valentine's Eve or the Fair Maid of Perth, which 
from the first pleased his critics. 

The first Tales of a Grandfather appeared early in 25 
December, and their reception was more rapturous than 
that of any one of his works since Ivanhoe. He had 
solved for tlie first time the problem of narrating history, 
so as at once to excite and gratif}^ the cmiosity of youth, 
and please and instruct the wisest of mature minds. The 30 
popularity of the book has grown with ever}- A^ear that has 
since elapsed; it is equally prized in the library, the 
boudoir, the schoolroom, and the nursery; it is adopted 



220 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

as the happiest of manuals, not only in Scotland, but where- 
ever the English tongue is spoken ; nay, it is to be seen in 
the hands of old and young all over the civilized world, and 
has, I have little doubt, extended the knowledge of Scot- 

S tish history in quarters where little or no interest had ever 
before been awakened as to any other parts of that subject, 
except those immediately connected with Mary Stuart 
and the Chevalier. 

There had been serious doubts, in what proportions the 

lo copyright of the Novels, &c. was vested, at the moment of 
the common calamity, in Scott or in Constable. One of 
the ablest of the Scotch Judges, John Irving, Lord Newton, 
undertook the settlement of this complicated question, as 
private arbiter : and the result of his ultimate award was, 

IS that Scott had lost all hold on the copj^ight of the Novels 
from Waverley to Quentin Durward ; but that Napoleon 
and Woodstock were wholly his. This decision, however, 
was not to be expected speedily : it had now become highly 
expedient to bring the body of copyrights to sale — and it 

20 was agreed to do so, the money to be deposited in bank 
until the award were given. This sale (on 19th December 
1827) comprised all the Novels from Waverley to Quentin 
Durward inclusive, besides a majority of the shares of the 
Poetical Works. Mr. Cadell's family and private friends 

25 were extremely desirous to secure for him part at least 
of these copyrights; and Sir Walter's were not less so 
that he should seize this last opportunity of recovering 
a share in the prime fruits of his genius. The relations 
by this time established between him and Cadell were 

30 those of strict confidence and kindness; and both saw 
well that the property would be comparatively lost, were 
it not ensured that thenceforth the whole should be man- 
aged as one unbroken concern. The result was, that 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 221 

the copyrights exposed to sale were purchased, one-half 
for Sir Walter, the other half for Cadell, at the price of 
L.8500. Well might the ''pockpuddings" — for so the 
Diary styles the English booksellers — rue their timidity 
on this day ; but it was the most lackj^ one that ever came 5 
for Sir Walter's creditors. A dividend of six shillings in 
the pound was paid at this Christmas on their whole claims. 
The result of their high-hearted debtor's exertions, be- 
tween January 1826 and January 1828, was in all very 
nearly L. 40,000. No hterary biographer, in all likehhood, 10 
W\\\ ever have such another fact to record. The creditors 
unanimously passed a vote of thanks for the indefatigable 
industry w^hich had achieved so much for their behoof. 

On returning to Abbotsford at Christmas, after com- 
pleting these transactions, he says in his Diary — ''My 15 
reflections in entering my own gate to-daj" were of a very 
different and more pleasing cast than those with which I 
left this place about six weeks ago. I was then in doubt 
wiiether I should fly my country, or become avowedly 
bankrupt, and surrender up my library and household 20 
furniture, with the liferent of my estate, to sale. A man of 
the world will say I had better done so. No doubt, had I 
taken this course at once, I might have employed the 
money I have made since the insolvency of Constable and 
Robinson's houses in compounding my debts. But 1 25 
could not have slept sound, as I now can under the com- 
fortable impression of receiving the thanks of my creditors, 
and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a man 
of honour and honesty. I see before me a long, tedious, 
and dark path, but it leads to stainless reputation. If I 30 
die in the harrows, as is very likely, I shaU die with honour ; 
if I achieve my task, I shall have the thanks of all con- 
cerned, and the approbation of my own conscience." 



222 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

He now took up in earnest two pieces of work, which 
promised and brought great ultimate advantage ; namely, 
a complete collection of his Poems, with biographical pref- 
aces ; the other, an uniform edition of his Novels, each to 

S be introduced by an account of the hints on which it had 
been founded, and illustrated throughout by historical and 
antiquarian annotations. On this last, commonly men- 
tioned in the Diary as the Magnum Opus° Sir Walter 
bestowed pains commensurate with its importance ; — 

lo and in the execution of the very delicate task which either 
scheme imposed, he has certainly displayed such a com- 
bination of frankness and modesty as entitles him to a 
high place in the short list of graceful autobiographers. 
He finished his novel by the end of March, and imme- 

15 diately set out for London, where the last budget of proof- 
sheets reached him. The Fair Maid was, and continues 
to be, highly popular, and though never classed with his 
performances of the first file, it has undoubtedly several 
scenes equal to what the best of them can shew, and is on 

20 the whole a work of brilliant variety and most lively in- 
terest. 

On his return to Edinburgh, Sir Walter was greeted 
with the satisfactory intelligence that his plans as to the 
Opus Magnum had been considered at a meeting of his 

25 trustees, and finally approved in toto° As the scheme 
inferred a large outlay on drawings and engravings, and 
otherwise, this decision had been looked for with much 
anxiety by him and Mr. Cadell. 

During the remainder of this year Sir Walter never 

30 opened his "locked book." Whether in Edinburgh or 
the country, his life was such, that he describes himself, in 
several letters, as having become "a writing automaton." 
He had completed by Christmas the Second Series of 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 223 

Tales on Scottish History, and made considerable prog- 
ress in another novel — Anne of Geierstein. 

His novel was finished before breakfast on the 29th of 
April; and his Diary mentions that immediately after 
breakfast he began his compendium of Scottish history for s 
Dr. Lardner's Cyclopocdia. When the proprietors of that 
work, in July 1828, offered him L.500 for an abstract of 
Scottish History in one volume, he dechned the proposal. 
They subsequently offered L.700, and this was accepted ; 
but though he began the task under the impression that he lo 
should find it a heavy one, he soon warmed to the subject, 
and pursued it with cordial zeal and satisfaction. One 
volume, it by and by appeared, would never do, — in his 
own phrase, ''he must have elbow-room" — and I believe 
it was finally settled that he should have L.loOO for the 15 
book in two volumes ; of which the fu'st was published be- 
fore the end of this year. 

Anne of Geierstein came out about the middle of 
May ; and this, which may be almost called the last work 
of his imaginative genius, was received at least as well — 20 
(out of Scotland, that is) — as the Fair Maid of Perth 
had been, or indeed as any novel of his after the Cru- 
saders. I partake very strongly, I am aware, in the feel- 
ing which most of my o^mi countrymen have little shame 
in avowing, that no novel of his, where neither scener}^ nor 25 
character is Scottish, belongs to the same preeminent class 
with those in which he paints and peoples his native land- 
scape. I have confessed that I cannot rank even his best 
English romances with such creations as Waverley and 
Old Mortality ; far less can I believe that posterity vaW 30 
attach similar value to this Maid of the Mist. 

His Diary has few more entries for this twelvemonth. 
Besides the volume of history for Lardner, he had ready 



224 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

by December the last of the Scottish Series of Tales of a 
Grandfather; and had made great progress in the pref- 
aces and notes for Cadell's Opus Magnurn. He had also 
overcome various difficulties which for a time interrupted 
5 the twin scheme of an illustrated edition of his Poems : and 
one of these in a manner honourably characteristic of the 
late John Murray of Albemarle Street, who had till now 
retained a share in the copyright of Marmion. Scott 
having requested him to sell that share, he generously re- 

lo plied: — "So highly do I estimate the honour of being, 
even in so small a degree, the publisher of the author of the 
poem, that no pecuniary consideration whatever can in- 
duce me to part with it. But there is a consideration of 
another kind, which until now I was not aware of, which 

15 would make it painful to me if I were to retain it a moment 
longer. I mean the knowledge of its being required by 
the author, into whose hands it was spontaneously re- 
signed in the same instant that I read his request." 

The success of the collective novels was far beyond 

20 what either Sir Walter or Mr. Cadell had ventured to 
anticipate. Before the close of 1829, eight volumes had 
been issued ; and the monthly sale had reached as high as 
35,000. Should this go on, there was, indeed, every 
reason to hope that, coming in aid cf undiminished in- 

25 dustry in the preparation of new works, it would wipe off 
all his load of debt in the course of a very few years. And 
during the autumn (which I spent near him) it was most 
agreeable to observe the effects of the prosperous intel- 
ligence, which every succeeding month brought, upon his 

30 spirits. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Retirement from the Court of Session — Offers of a 
Pension and of Additional Rank declined — Count Robert 
of Paris begun — Making of his Will — 1830-1831. 

In the course of the Spring Session, circumstances ren- 
dered it highly probable that Sir Walter's resignation of 
his place as Clerk of Session might be acceptable to the 
Government ; and it is not surprising that he should have, 
on the whole, been pleased to avail himself cf this oppor- s 
tunity. He says, in his Diary — "May 27. I am agitat- 
ing a proposed retirement from the Court. As they are 
only to have four instead of six Clerks of Session, it wiU be 
their interest to let me retire on a superannuation. Prob- 
ably I shall make a bad bargain, and get only two-thirds lo 
of the salary, instead of three-fourths. This would be 
hard, but I could save between two or three hundred 
pounds by giving up town residence. At any rate, jacta 
est alea° I think the difference will be infinite in point 
of health and happiness. Yet I do not know. It is per- 15 
haps a violent change in the end of life to quit the walk 
one has trod so long, and the cursed splenetic temper 
which besets all men makes you value opportunities and 
circumstances when one enjoys them no longer." 

In Jul}' came the formal intimation that he had ceased 20 
to be a Clerk of Session, and should thenceforth have, 
in lieu of his salary, &c. (L.1300) an allowance of L.800 
per annum. This was accompanied bj^ an intimation 
from the Home Secretary, that the Ministers were quite 
Q ^ Tib 



226 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

ready to grant him a pension covering the reduction of his 
income. Considering himself as the bond-slave of his 
creditors, he made known to them this proposition, and 
stated that it would be extremely painful to him to accept 

5 of it ; and with the delicacy and generosity which through- 
out characterized their conduct towards him, they without 
hesitation entreated him on no account to do injury to his 
own feelings in such a matter as this. Few things gave 
him more pleasure than this handsome communication. 

lo "Septembr 5 — Cadell came out here yesterday with his 
horn filled with good news. He calculates that in October 
the debt will be reduced to L.60,000. This makes me 
care less about the terms I retire upon. The efforts by 
which we have advanced thus far are new in literature, 

15 and what is gained is secure." 

Mr. Cadell's great hope, when he offered this visit, had 
been that the good news of the Magnum might induce Sir 
Walter to content himself with working at notes and pref- 
aces for its coming volumes, without straining at more 

20 difficult tasks. He found his friend, however, by no means 
disposed to adopt such views. He must bend himself to 
the composition of a romance, founded on a story which he 
had more than once told cursorily already, and for which 
he had been revolving the various titles of Robert of the 

25 Isle — Count Robert de LTsle — and Count Robert 
of Paris. There w^as nothing to be said in reply to the 

■ decisive announcement of this purpose. The usual agree- 
ments were drawn out; and the Tale was begun. 

Towards the end of November, Sir Walter had another 

30 slight touch of apoplexy. He recovered himself without 
assistance; but again consulted his physicians in Edin- 
burgh, and by their advice adopted a still greater severity 
of regimen, 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 227 

The reader will now understand what his frame and 
condition of health and spirits were, when he at length 
received from Ballantyne a decided protest against the 
novel on which he was struggling to fix the shattered en- 
ergies of his memory and fancy. He replied thus : s 

"Abbotsford, 8th Dec. 1830. 

''M}' Dear James, — If I were like other authors, as I 
flatter myself I am not, I should 'send you an order on my 
treasurer for a hundred ducats,' wishing you all prosperity 
and a little more taste° ; but having never supposed that lo 
any abilities I ever had were of a perpetual texture, I am 
glad when friends tell me what I might be long in finding 
out myself. Mr. Cadell will shew j^ou what I have written 
to him. My present idea is to go abroad for a few months, 
if I hold together as long. So ended the Fathers of the 15 
Novel — Fielding and SmoUet — and it would be no un- 
professional finish for yours — W. S." 

This note to the printer, and a letter of the same date 
and strain to the publisher, "struck both," Mr. Cadell 
says, 'Svith dismay." They resolved to go out to Abbots- 20 
ford, but not for a few days, because a general meeting of 
the creditors was at hand, and there was reason to hope 
that its results would enable them to appear as the bearers 
of sundry pieces of good news. 

The meeting of trustees and creditors took place on the 25 
17th — Mr. George Forbes (brother to the late Sir Wil- 
Uam) in the chair. There was then announced another 
di\idend on the Ballantyne estate of three shillings in the 
pound — thus reducing the original amount of the debt to 
about L.54,000. It had been not unnaturally appre-30 
hended that the con\^lsed state of poUtics might have 
checked the sale of the Magnum Opus ; but this does not 



228 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

seem to have been the ease to any extent worth notice. 
The meeting was numerous — and, not contented with a 
renewed vote of thanks to their debtor, they passed 
unanimously a resolution, which was moved by Mr. (now 
S Sir James) Gibson-Craig, and seconded by Mr. Thomas 
Allan — both, by the way, leading Whigs: — "That Sir 
Walter Scott be requested to accept of his furniture, plate, 
linens, paintings, hbrary, and curiosities of every descrip- 
tion, as the best means the creditors have of expressing 

lo their very high sense of his most honourable conduct, and 
in grateful acknowledgment for the unparalleled and most 
successful exertions he has made, and continues to make, 
for them." 

On the 18th, Cadell and Ballantyne proceeded to Ab- 

15 botsford, and found Sir Walter in a placid state — having 
evidently been much soothed and gratified with the tidings 
from Mr. Forbes. His whole appearance w^as greatly bet- 
ter than they had ventured to anticipate; and deferring 
literary questions till the morning, he made this gift from 

20 his creditors the chief subject of his conversation. He said 
it had taken a heavy load off his mind ; he apprehended 
that, even if his future works should produce little money, 
the profits of the Magnum, during a limited number of 
years, with the sum which had been insured on his life, 

25 w^ould be sufficient to obliterate the remaining part of 
the Ballantyne debt : he considered the library and mu- 
seum now conveyed to him as worth at the least L. 10,000, 
and this would enable him to make some provision for his 
younger children. 

30 On the 31st of January, Miss Scott being too unwell 
for a journey. Sir Walter went alone to Edinburgh for the 
purpose of executing his last will. Of this excursion the 
Diary says : "I executed my last will, leaving Walter 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 229 

burdened with L.IOOO to Sophia, L.2000 to Anne, and the 
same to Charles. He is to advance them this money if 
they want it ; if not, to pay them interest. All this is his 
o^\^l choice, otherwdse I would liave sold the books and 
rattletraps. I have made provisions for clearing my estate s 
by my pubhcations, should it be possible ; and should that 
prove possible, from the time of such clearance being 
effected, to be a fund available to all my children who shall 
be aUve or leave representatives. My bequests must, 
many of them, seem hypothetical." lo 



CHAPTER XVII 

Apoplectic Paralysis — Castle Dangerous begun — De- 
parture from Abbotsford — London — Voyage in the 
Barham — Malta — Naples — Rome — 1831-1832. 

After a pause of some days, the Diary has this entry for 
April 25, 1831 : — ''From Saturday 16th April, to Satur- 
day 24th of the same month, unpleasantly occupied by ill 
health and its consequences. A distinct stroke of paralysis 
5 affecting both my nerves and speech, though beginning 
only on Monday with a very bad cold. Doctor Abercrom- 
bie was brought out by the friendly care of Cadell, — but 
young Clarkson had already done the needful, that is, 
had bled and blistered, and placed me on a very reduced 

lodiet. Wliether precautions have been taken in time, I 
cannot teU. I think they have, though severe in them- 
selves, beat the disease; but I am alike prepared." 

He had resumed, and was trying to recast, his novel. 
All the medical men had urged him, by every argument, 

15 to abstain from any such attempts; but he smiled on 
them in silence, or answered with some jocular rhyme. 
He told me, that in the winter he had more than once tried 
writing with his own hand, because he had no longer the 
same ''pith and birr" that formerly rendered dictation 
easy to him ; but that the experiment failed. He was now 

2o sensible he could do nothing without Laidlaw to hold the 
Bramah pen; adding, "Wilhe is a kind clerk — I see by 
230 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 231 

his looks when I am pleasing him, and that pleases me." 
And however the cool critic may now estimate Count 
Robert, no one who then saw the author could wonder 
that Laidlaw's prevalent feeling in writing those pages 
should have been admiration. Under the full conscious- s 
ness that he had sustained three or four strokes of apoplexy 
or palsy, or both combined, and tortured by various at- 
tendant ailments — cramp, rheumatism in half his joints, 
daily increasing lameness, and now of late gravel (which 
was, though last, not least) — he retained all the energy lo 
of his will, struggled manfully against this sea of troubles, 
and might well have said seriously, as he more than once 
both said and wrote playfully, 

" 'Tis not in mortals to command success, 
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." ^ 15 

Some business called me to London about the middle 
of June, and when I returned at the end of three weeks, 
I had the satisfaction to find that he had been gradually 
amending. 

But, alas ! the first use he made of this partial renova- 20 
tion had been to expose his brain once more to an imagi- 
native task. He began his Castle Dangerous — the 
groundwork being again an old story which he had told in 
print, many years before, in a rapid manner. And now, 
for the first time, he left Ballantyne out of his secret. He 25 
thus writes to Cadell on the 3d of July : — ''I intend to tell 
this little matter to nobody but Lockhart. Perhaps not 
even to him; certainly not to J. B., who having turned 
his back on his old pohtical friends, will no longer have a 
claim to be a secretary in such matters, though I shall 30 

1 Addison's Cato. 



232 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

always be glad to befriend him." James's criticisms on 
Count Robert had wounded him — the Diar}^, already 
quoted, shews how severely. 

For two or three weeks he bent himself sedulously to his 

S task — and concluded both Castle Dangerous and the 
long suspended Count Robert. By this time he had 
submitted to the recommendation of all his medical friends, 
and agreed to spend the coming winter away from Abbots- 
ford, among new scenes, in a more genial climate, and above 

loall (so he promised), in complete abstinence from all 
literary labour. When Captain Basil Hall understood 
that he had resolved on wintering at Naples (where, as 
has been mentioned, his son Charles was attached to the 
British Legation), it occurred to the zealous sailor that on 

IS such an occasion as this all thoughts of pohtical difference 
ought to be dismissed, — and he, unknown to Scott, ad- 
dressed a letter to Sir James Graham, then First Lord of 
the Admiralty, stating the condition of his friend's health, 
and his proposed plan, and suggesting that it would be a 

20 fit and graceful thing for the King's Government to place 
a frigate at his disposal. Sir James rephed that it afforded 
his Royal Master, as well as himself, the sincerest satis- 
faction to comply with this hint; and that whenever Sir 
Walter found it convenient to come southwards, a vessel 

25 should be prepared for his reception. Nothing could be 
handsomer than the way in which all this matter was ar- 
ranged, and Scott, deeply gratified, exclaimed that things 
were yet in the hands of gentlemen ; but that he feared 
they had been undermining the state of society which 

30 required such persons as themselves to be at the head. 
He had no wish, however, to leave Abbotsford until the 
approach of winter; and having dismissed his Tales, 
seemed to say to himself that he would enjoy his dear valley 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 233 

for the intervening weeks, draw friends about him, revisit 
all the familiar scenes in his neighbourhood once more; 
ai:d if he were never to come back, store himself ^^-ith the 
most agreeable recollections in his power, and so conduct 
himself as to bequeath to us who surrounded him a last 5 
stock of gentle impressions. He continued to work a 
Uttle at his notes and prefaces, but did not fatigue himself ; 
and when once all plans were settled, and all cares in so 
far as possible set aside, his health and spirits certainly 
ralhed most wonderfully. 10 

I must not omit to record how gratefully all Sh- Walter's 
family felt the dehcate and watchful tenderness of Mr. 
Cadell's conduct. He so managed that the Novels just 
finished should remain in types, but not thro^Ti off until 
the author should have departed ; so as to give oppor- 15 
tunitj^ for revising and abridging them. He might well be 
the bearer of cheering news as to their greater concerns, 
for the sale of the Magnum had, in spite of political 
turbulences and distractions, gone on successfully. But 
he probably strained a point to make things appear still 20 
better than the}" reallj' were. He certainlj' spoke so as 
to satisfy his friend that he need give himself no sort 
of uneasiness about the pecuniar}^ results of idleness and 
travel. It was about this time that we observed Sir 
Walter beginning to entertain the notion that his debts 25 
were paid off. By degrees, dweUing on this fancy, he be- 
lieved in it f iiUy and implicitly. It was a gross delusion — 
but neither Cadell nor any one else had the heart to dis- 
tui'b it b}" any formal statement of figures. It contributed 
greatly more than any circumstance besides to soothe Sir 30 
Walter's feelings, when it became at last necessary that he 
should tear himself from his land and his house, and the 
trees which he had nursed. And with all that was done 



234 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

and forborne, the hour when it came was a most heavy 
one. 

Early on the 23d of September 1831, Sir Walter left 
Abbotsford, attended by his daughter Anne and myself, 

5 and we reached London by easy stages on the 28th, having 
spent one day at Rokeby. The following month was 
spent in London and on the 29th of October the Barham 
got under weigh. After a few days, when they had passed 
the Bay of Biscay, Sir Walter ceased to be annoyed with 

lo seasickness, and sat most of his time on deck, enjoying 
apparently the air, the scenery, and above all the ship 
itself, the beautiful discipline practised in all things, and 
the martial exercises of the men. Italy, especially Naples, 
gave Scott pleasure, mingled with a great desire for his 

IS own Scotland, during this last winter of his life. 



CHAPTER XVni 

R^urn to Eng^nd — Loni>jon — Abbotsford — Death 
and Funeral of Scf?^^- i^^eptember 1832 — His Char- 
acter — Monuments to his Memory. 

The last jotting of Sir Walter Scott's Diary — perhaps 
the last specimen of his handwriting — records his start- 
ing from Naples on the 16th of April. After the 11th of 
May the story can hardl}^ be told too briefly. 

He reached London about six o'clock on the evening of 5 
Wednesday the 13th of June, and was detained there by 
illness. At length his constant yearning to return to 
Abbotsford induced his physicians to consent to his re- 
moval ; and the moment this was notified to him, it seemed 
to infuse new vigour into his frame. It was on a calm, 10 
clear afternoon of the 7th July, that every preparation 
was made for his embarkation on board the steam- 
boat. 

At a very early hour on the morning of Wednesday 
the 11th, w^e again placed him in his carriage, and he 15 
lay in the same torpid state during the first two stages 
on the road to Tweedside. But as we descended the 
vale of the Gala he began to gaze about him, and by de- 
grees it was obvious that he was recognizing the features 
of that famihar landscape. Presently he murmured a 20 
name or two — ''Gala Water, surely — Buckholm — 
Torwoodlee." As we rounded the hill at Ladhope, and 
the outhne of the Eildons b\irst on him, he became greatly i 

235 



236 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

excited ; and, when turning himself on the couch, his eje 
caught at length his own towers at the distance of a mile, 
he sprang up with a cry of delight. The river being in 
flood, we had to go round a few miles by Melrose bridge ; 

5 and during the time this occupied, his woods and house 
being within prospect, it required occasionally both Dr. 
Watson's strength and mine, in addition to Nicolson's, to 
keep him in the carriage. After passing the bridge, the 
road for a couple of miles loses sight of Abbotsford, and 

lohe relapsed into his stupor; but on gaining the bank im- 
mediately above it, his excitement became again ungov- 
ernable. 

Mr. Laidlaw was waiting at the porch, and assisted us in 
lifting him into the dining-room, where his bed had been 

15 prepared. He sat bewildered for a few moments, and then 
resting his eye on Laidlaw, said — "Ha ! Willie Laidlaw ! 
man, how often have I thought of you ! " By this time 
his dogs had assembled about his chair — they began to 
fawn upon him and lick his hands, and he alternately 

20 sobbed and smiled over them, until sleep oppressed him. 
Something like a ray of hope broke in upon us next 
morning. Sir Walter awoke perfectly conscious where 

• he was,' and expressed an ardent wish to be carried out 
into his garden. We procured a Bath chair from Huntley 

25 Burn, and Laidlaw and I wheeled him out before his door, 
and up and down for some time on the turf, and among 
the rose-beds then in full bloom. The grandchildren 
admired the new vehicle, and would be helping in their 
way to push it about. He sat in silence, smihng placidly 

30 on them and the dogs their companions, and now and 
then admiring the house, the screen of the garden, and the 
flowers and trees. By and by he conversed a little, very 
composedly, with us — said he was happy to be at home 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 237 

— that he felt better than he had ever done since he left 
it, and would perhaps disappoint the doctors after all. 
He then desired to be wheeled through his rooms, and 
we moved him leisurely for an hour or more up and down 
the hall and the great library : — "I have seen much," he s 
kept saying, 'M3ut nothing like my ain house — give me 
one turn more ! " He was gentle as an infant, and allowed 
himself to be put to bed again, the moment we told him 
that we thought he had had enough for one day. 

Next morning he was still better. After again enjoying lo 
the Bath chair for perhaps a couple of hours out of doors, 
he desired to be drawn into the library, and placed by the 
central window, that he might look down upon the Tweed. 
Here he expressed a wish that I should read to him, and 
when I asked from what book, he said — ''Need j^ou ask ? 15 
There is but one." I chose the 14th chapter of St. John's 
Gospel; he hstened with mild devotion, and said wiien I 
had done — ''Well, this is a great comfort — I have fol- 
lowed 3^ou distinctly, and I feel as if I w^ere j^et to be mj^- 
self again." In this placid frame he was again put to bed, 20 
and had many hours of soft slumber. 

On Monday he remained in bed, and seemed extremely 
feeble; but after brealvfast on Tuesday the 17th he ap- 
peared revived somewhat, and was again wiieeled about on 
the turf. Presently he fell asleep in his chair, and after 25 
dozing for perhaps half an hour, started awake, and shak- 
ing the plaids we had put about him off his shoulders, 
said — "This is sad idleness. I shall forget what I have 
been thinking of, if I don't set it down now. Take me 
into my own room, and fetch the keys of my desk." He 30 
repeated this so earnestly, that we could not refuse ; his 
daughters went into his study, opened his writing-desk, and 
laid paper and pens in the usual order, and I then moved 



238 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

him through the hall and into the spot where he had al- 
ways been accustomed to work. When the chair was 
placed at the desk, and he found himself in the old position, 
he smiled and thanked us, and said — ''Now give me my 

5 pen, and leave me for a little to mj^self." Sophia put the 
pen into his hand, and he endeavoured to close his fingers 
upon it, but they refused their office — it dropped on the 
paper. He sank back among his pillows, silent tears 
rolling down his cheeks; but composing himself by and 

lobye, motioned to me to wheel him out of doors again. 
Laidlaw met us at the porch, and took his turn of the chair. 
Sir Walter, after a Httle while, again dropt into slumber. 
When he was awaking, Laidlaw said to me — "Sir Walter 
has had a little repose." — "No, Willie," said he — "no 

IS repose for Sir Walter but in the grave." The tears again 
rushed from his eyes. "Friends," said he, "don't let 
me expose myself — get me to bed — that's the only 
place." 

As I was dressing on the morning of Monday the 17th 

2oof September, Nicolson came into my room, and told me 
that his master had awoke in a state of composure and 
consciousness, and wished to see me immediately. I found 
him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feeble- 
ness. His eye was clear and calm — everj^ trace of the 

25 wild fire of delirium extinguished. "Lockhart," he said, 
"I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be 
a good man — be virtuous — be religious — be a good 
man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you 
come to he here." — He paused, and I said — "Shall I 

30 send for Sophia and Anne?" — "No," said he, "don't 
disturb them. Poor souls ! I know they were up all night 
— God bless you all." — With this he sunk into a very 
tranquil sleep, and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 239 

any sign of consciousness, except for an instant on the 
arrival of his sons. 

The}', on learning that the scene was about to close, 
obtained anew leave of absence from their posts, and 
both reached Abbotsford on the 19th. About half-pasts 
one P.M. on the 21st of September, Sir Walter breathed 
his last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beau- 
tiful day — so warm, that every window was wide open — 
and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most 
delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its lo 
pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, 
and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes. Xo sculptor 
ever modelled a more majestic image of repose. 

Almost every newspaper that announced this event in 
Scotland, and many in England, had the signs of mourning is 
usual on the demise of a king. With hardly an exception, 
the voice was that of universal, unmixed grief and ven- 
eration. 

His funeral was conducted in an unostentatious manner, 
but the attendance was very great. Few of his old friends 20 
then in Scotland were absent, — and many, both friends 
and strangers, came from a great distance. His domes- 
tics and foresters made it their petition that no hireling 
hand might assist in carrj'ing his remains. They them- 
selves bore the coffin to the hearse, and from the hearse 25 
to the grave. 

The wide enclosure at the Abbey of Dryburgh was 
thronged \vith old and young; and when the coffin was 
taken from the hearse, and again laid on the shoulders of 
the afflicted serving-men, one deep sob burst from a thou- 30 
sand lips. Mr. Archdeacon Williams read the Burial 
Service of the Church of England ; and thus, about half- 
past five o'clock in the evening of Wednesday the 26th 



240 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

September 1832, the remains of Sir Walter Scott were 
laid by the side of his wife in the sepulchre of his ancestors 
— "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal 
life, through our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our 
5 vile body that it 7nay be like unto his glorious body, according 
to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things 
to himself J ^ 

Of the persons closely connected with Sir Walter Scott, 
and often named accordingly in these pages, few remain. 

lo James Ballantyne was on his deathbed when he heard of 
his great friend and patron's death. Of his own children 
none now survive. Miss Anne Scott received at Christ- 
mas 1832 a grant of L.200 per annum from the privy purse 
of King William IV. But her name did not long burden 

iS the pension list. Her constitution had been miserably'' 
shattered in the course of her long and painful attendance, 
first on her mother's illness, and then on her father's ; and 
perhaps reverse of fortune, and disappointments of ^^ari- 
ous sorts connected with that, had also hea\^ effect. 

2o From the day of Sir Walter's death, the strong stimulus of 
duty being lost, she too often looked and spoke like one 

"Taking the measure of an unmade grave." 

After a brief interval of disordered health, she contracted 

a brain fever, which carried her off abruptly. She died in 
25 my house in the Regent's Park on the 25th June 1833, 

and her remains are placed in the New Cemetery in the 

Harrow Road. 

The adjoining grave holds those of her nephew John 

Hugh Lockliart, who died 15th Dec. 1831 ; and also 
30 those of my wife Sophia, who expired after a long 

illness, which she bore with all possible meekness and 

fortitude, on the 17th of May 1837. Of all the race she 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 241 

most resembled her father in countenance, in temper, 
and in manners. 

Charles Scott, whose spotless worth had tenderly en- 
deared him to the few who knew him intimately, and whose 
industry and accuracy were warmlj^ acknowledged by his s 
professional superiors, on Lord Berwick's recall from the 
Neapolitan Embassy resumed his duties as a clerk in the 
Foreign Office, and continued in that situation until the 
summer of 1841. Sir John M'Neill, G. C. B., being 
then entrusted with a special mission to the Court of lo 
Persia, carried Charles with him as attache and private 
secretary; but the journey on horseback through Asia 
Minor was trying for his never robust frame ; and he con- 
tracted an inflammatory disorder, which cut him oft at 
Teheran, almost immediately on his arrival there ~ 15 
October 28, 1841. He had reached his 36th year. 

Walter, who succeeded to the baronetcy, proceeded to 
Madras in 1839, as Lieutenant-Colonel of the loth Hus- 
sars; and subsequently commanded that regiment. He 
was beloved and esteemed in it by officers and men as 20 
much, I believe, as any gentleman ever was in any corps 
of the British army ; and there was no officer of his rank 
who stood higher in the opinion of the heads of his profes- 
sion. He had begun life w^ith many advantages — a ver}^ 
handsome person, and great muscular strength — a sweet 25 
and even temper, and talents which in the son of any 
father but his would have been considered brilliant. Though 
neglectful of extra-professional studies in his earlier days, 
he had in after-life read extensively, and made himself, 
in every sense of the term, an accomplished man. The 30 
library for the soldiers of his corps was founded by him : 
the care of it was a principal occupation of his later years. 
His only legacj^ out of his family was one of L.lOO to this 



242 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

library; and his widow, well understanding what he felt 
towards it, directed that a similar suni should be added in 
her own name. Sir Walter having unwisely exposed him- 
self in a tiger-hunt in August 1846, was on his return to his 

5 quarters at Bangalore, smitten with fever, which ended 
in liver disease. He was ordered to proceed to England, 
and died near the Cape of Good Hope, on board the ship 
Wellesley, February the 8th, 1847. Lady Scott conveyed 
his remains to this country, and they were interred in the 

lo paternal aisle at Dryburgh on the 4th of May following, 
in the presence of the few survivors of his father's friends 
and many of his own. Three officers who had served under 
him, and were accidentally in Britain, arrived from great 
distances to pay him the last homage of their respect. 

IS He had never had any child ; and with him the baronetcy 
expired. 

The only descendants of the Poet now alive are my son, 
Walter Scott Lockhart (a lieutenant in the army), who, 
as his uncle's heir of entail, has lately received permission 

2o to assume the additional surname of Scott ; — and his 
sister, Charlotte Harriet Jane, married in August 1847 to 
James Robert Hope, Barrister, second son of the late 
General the Honourable Sir Alexander Hope, G. C. B.^ 



^ Walter Scott Lockhart Scott died at Versailles, on 
the 10th of January 1853, and was buried in the cemetery 
of Notre Dame there. 

John Gibson Lockhart, his father, and the author of 
this Biography, died at Abbotsford on the 25th of Novem- 
ber 1854, and was buried in Dryburgh Abbey, at the feet 
of Walter Scott. 

Mrs. Hope, on the death of her brother, succeeded to 
the estate of Abbotsford, and, with her husband, assumed 
the name of Scott, in addition to that of Hope. She died 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 243 

In the winter succeeding the Poet's death, his sons and 
myself, as his executors, endeavoured to make such ar- 
rangements as were within our power for completing the 
great object of his own wishes and fatal exertions. 

We found the remaining principal sum of commercial s 
debt to be nearly L.54,000. L.22,000 had been insured 
upon his life ; there were some monies in the hands of the 
Trustees, and Mr. Cadell very handsomely offered to 
advance to us the balance, about L. 30,000, that we might 
without further delay settle ^ith the body of creditors. ic 

This was effected accordingly on the 2d of February 
1833 ; Mr. Cadell accepting, as his only security, the right 
to the profits accruing from Sir Walter's copyright prop- 
erty' and literary remains, until such time as this new and 
consolidated obligation should be discharged. Besides is 
his commercial debt, Sir Walter left also one of L. 10,000, 



at Edinburgh on the 26th of October 1858, leaving three 
children, viz. : — 

"Mary Monica," born on the 2d of October 1852. 

"Walter Michael," born on the 2d of June 1857. 

"Margaret Anne," born on the 17th of September 1858. 

Of these, Margaret died on the 3d, and Walter on the 
11th of December 1858, and their remains lie beside those 
of their mother (and of their father, J. R. Hope-Scott, 
who died iVpril 29, 1873) in the vaults of St. Margaret's 
Convent, Edinburgh. "Mary Monica," who thus be- 
came the only surviving descendant of Walter Scott, mar- 
ried in 1874 the Hon. J. C. Maxwell, who assumed the 
name of Scott, and has, with other issue, Walter Joseph, 
born 1875. 

As an officer in the English army this Walter Scott saw 
service in the Boer War. Mr. J. R. Hope-Scott added a 
west wing to Abbotsford and made many other improve- 
ments. 



244 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

contracted by himself as an individual, when struggling 
to support Constable in December 1825, and secured by 
mortgage on the lands of Abbotsford. And, lastly, the 
library and museum, presented to him in free gift by his 
5 creditors in December 1830, were bequeathed to his eldest 
son, with a burden to the extent of L. 5000, which sum he 
designed to be divided between his younger children, as 
already explained in an extract from his diary. His will 
provided that the produce of his literary property, in case 
loof its proving sufficient to wipe out the remaining debt 
of the firm, should then be applied to the extinction 
of these mortgages ; and thereafter, should this also 
be accomplished, divided equally among his surviving 
family. 

IS Various meetings were held soon after his death with a 
view to the erection of Monuments to his memory; and 
the records of these meetings, and their results, are adorned 
by many of the noblest and most distinguished names both 
of England and of Scotland. In London, the Lord Bishop 

2oof Exeter, Sir Robert Peel, and Sir John Malcolm, took 
a prominent part as speakers : and the result was a sub- 
scription amounting to about L. 10,000 ; but a part of this 
was embezzled by a young person rashly appointed to the 
post of secretary, who carried it with him to America, 

25 where he soon afterwards died. The noblemen and gentle- 
men who subscribed to this fund adopted a suggestion — 
(which originated, I believe, with Lord Francis Egerton, 
now Earl of Ellesmere, and the Honourable John Stuart 
Wortley, now Lord Wharnecliffe) — that, in place of 

30 erecting a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey, or a statue or 
pillar elsewhere, the most suitable and respectful tribute 
that could be paid to Sir Walter's memory would be to 
discharge all the encumbrances upon Abbotsford, and en- 
tail the House, with its library and other articles of curi- 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 245 

osity collected by him, together with the lands which he 
had planted and embellished, upon the heirs of his name 
for ever. The sum produced by the subscription, how- 
ever, proved inadequate to the realization of such a 
scheme ; and after much consultation, it was at length s 
settled that the money in the hands of the committee 
(between L.7000 and L.8000), should be employed to 
Hquidate the debt upon the library and museum, and 
Avhatever might be over, towards the mortgage on the 
lands. This arrangement enabled the Lieutenant-Colo- lo 
nel Sir Walter Scott to secure, in the shape originally 
desired, the permanent preservation at least of the house 
and its immediate appurtenances, as a memorial of the 
tastes and habits of the founder. 

Such was the state of matters when the Lieutenant- 15 
Colonel embarked for India : and in his absence no further 
steps could well be taken. Upon his death, it was found 
that, notwithstanding the very extensive demand for his 
father's writings, there still remained a considerable 
debt to Mr. Cadell, and also the greater part of the old 20 
debt secured on the lands. Mr. Cadell then offered to 
relieve the guardians of the young inheritor of that great 
name from much anxiety and embarrassment, by accept- 
ing, in full payment of the sum due to himself, and also 
in recompense for his taking on himself the final oblitera- 25 
tion of the heritable bond, a transference to him of the 
remaining claims of the family over Sir Walter's wTitings,. 
together with the result of some literary exertions of the 
only survi\'ing executor. This arrangement was com- 
pleted in May 1847; and the estate, as well as the house 30 
and its appendages, became at last unfettered. The 
rental is small ; but I hope and trust, that as long as any 
of the blood remains, reverent care will attend over the 
guardianship of a possession associated with so many 



246 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

high and noble recollections. On that subject the gal- 
lant soldier who executed the entail expressed also in his 
testament feelings of the devoutest anxiety : and it was, 
I am well assm-ed, in order that no extraneous obstacle 
5 might thwart the fulfilment of his pious wishes, that Mr. 
Cadell crowned a long series of kind services to the cause 
and the memory of Sir Walter Scott, by the very hand- 
some proposition of 1847. 

Abbotsford, after his own immortal works, is the best 

lo monument of its founder. But at Edinburgh also, soon 
after his death, a meeting was held with a view to the 
erection of some visible memorial in his native city; the 
prominent speakers were the late Marquess of Lothian, 
the late Earl of Dalhousie, the Earl of Rosebery, Lord 

IS Jeffrey, and Professor Wilson ; and the subscription then 
begun realized a sum of L.8000, which by subsequent 
exertions reached no less than L. 15,000. The result may 
now be seen in a truly magnificent monument, conspicu- 
ous to every visitor of Scott's "own rom.antic town" — 

,2oa lofty Gothic cross, enclosing and surmounting a marble 
statue of the Poet, which, as well as many happy relievos 
on the exterior, does great honour to the chisel of Mr. 
Steele. 

In Glasgow, also, there was a meeting in 1832 : the sub- 

25 scriptions there reached L.1200 : and in the chief square of 
that city, abeady graced with statues of two illustrious 
natives, James Watt and Sir John Moore, there is now 
a lofty pillar, surmounted with a statue of Sir Walter 
Scott. 

30 Finally, in the market-place of Selkirk there has been set 
up, at the cost of local friends and neighbours, a statue in 
freestone, by Mr. Alexander Ritchie of Musselburgh, with 
this inscription : — 



LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 247 

"erected in august 1839, 
in proud and affectionate remembrance 

OF 

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BARONET, 

SHERIFF OF THIS COUNTY S. 

FROM 1800 TO 1832 

By Yarrow's stream still let me stray, 

Though none should guide my feeble way ; 

Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, 

Although it chill my withered cheek. "° lo 

In what manner to cover the grave itself at Dryburgh 
required some consideration, in consequence of the state of 
the surrounding and overhanging ruins. Sir F. Chantrey 
recommended a block of Aberdeen granite, so sohd as to 
resist even the fall of the ivied roof of the aisle, and kindly is 
sketched the shape ; in which he followed the stone coffin 
of the monastic ages — especialh' the "marble stone" on 
which Deloraine awaits the opening of the wizard's vault 
in the Lay. The inscriptions on this simple but graceful 
tomb are merely of name and date. 20 

On the whole, I have no doubt that, the more the de- 
tails of his personal history are revealed and studied, the 
more powerfully will they be found to inculcate the same 
great lessons with his works. AAliere else shall we be 
taught better how^ prosperity may be extended by be- 25 
neficence, and adversity confronted by exertion ? Where 
can we see the "follies of the wise" more strikingly re- 
buked, and a character more beautifully purified and ex- 
alted in the passage through affliction to death ? I have 
Imgered so long over the details, that I have, perhaps, 30 



248 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 

become, even from that circumstance alone, less qualified 
than more rapid surveyors may be to seize the effect in 
the mass. But who does not feel that there is something 
very invigorating as well as elevating in the contempla- 

S tion ? His character seems to belong to some elder and 
stronger period than ours; and, indeed, I cannot help 
likening it to the architectural fabrics of other ages, which 
he most delighted in, where there is such a congregation 
of imagery and tracery, such endless indulgence of whim 

loand fancy, the sublime blending here with the beautiful, 
and there contrasted with the grotesque — half, perhaps, 
seen in the clear daylight, and half by rays tinged with the 
blazoned forms of the past — that one may be apt to get 
bewildered among the variety of particular impressions, 

IS and not feel either the unity of the grand design, or the 
height and solidness of the structure, until the door has 
been closed upon the labyrinth of aisles and shrines, and 
you survey it from a distance^ but still within its shadow. 



NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

1: 19. Robert Burns, 1759-1796. Scott calls him " the 
boast of Scotland." Can you report incidents in the poet's 
life to justify Scott's estimate of the value of his memoirs ? 

1:20. Thomas Chatterton, 1752-1770. Committed 
suicide at the age of nineteen years. Perhaps you can 
explain how this boy gained a place in literature. 

1 : 20. Richard Savage, 1698-1743. Scott may have 
had in mind Dr. Samuel Johnson's " Life of Savage " of 
which Macaulay wrote, " No finer specimen of literary 
biography existed in any language, living or dead." 
Macaulay's comment on Savage in his essay on Samuel 
Johnson, originally published in the Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica, will be found most interesting. 

2 : 28. Teviotdale. The valley of the river Teviot, 
near the southeastern border of Scotland. 

3 : 2. Yarrow. A parish and stream in the county of 
which Scott was for many years the honored sheriff. 
" Yarrow Revisited," a poem by William Wordsworth, 
describes the beauties of the border country and is rich in 
references to the Mighty Minstrel. 

3 : 6. Stuart. In 1371 Robert Stuart became Robert II 
of Scotland. Different members of this family take lead- 
ing parts in many of Scott's tales. Especially interesting 
are " Waverley " and " The Fortunes of Nigel." 

4:18. Hermann Boerhaave, 1668-1738. A Dutch 
249 



250 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

physician and scientist whose genius gave the university 
of Leyden great fame. 

6:27. Jacobites. "Jacobus" is the Latin form of 
" James." The last Stuart king was James II. For 
many years after his flight from England the Stuart 
family had ardent supporters in England and Scotland. 
The supporters of James. 

6 : 30. CuUoden. The decisive battle of April 15th, 
1746, in which the Stuart cause was finally overthrown by 
a son of King George II, the Duke of Cumberland, then a 
distinguished general though but twenty-four years old. 

7 : 12. Robin Hood was a legendary outlaw, famed to 
have lived in the forest of Sherwood in the fourteenth 
century, who robbed the rich and befriended the poor and 
became the hero of ballad and story. Little John was one of 
his retainers. Both are characters in Scott's " Ivanhoe." 

7 : 19. Automathes. "The capacity and extent of the 
human understanding; exemplified in the extraordinary 
case of Automathes, a young nobleman, who was acci- 
dentally left in infancy upon a desolate island, and con- 
tinued nineteen years in that solitary state, separate from 
all human society." Written by John Kirby, a tutor of 
the historian. Gibbon, and published at London in 1745. 

7:19. Allan Ramsay, 1685-1758. Scottish poet. 

7:21. Josephus, 37-100. Jewish historian of the 
last war between the Jews and the Romans. 

7 : 33. La Mancha. The home of Don Quixote, the 
hero of Cervantes' great Spanish novel. 

8 : 8. Bath. A beautiful city of Somerset, England, 
in the valley of the Avon. It was famous for its baths 
at the time of the Roman occupation of Britain and has 
for over two centuries been the chief watering place of 
England. 



NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 251 

8 : 12. Bladud. An ancient British prince who was 
afflicted with leprosy. Tradition says he discovered the 
medicinal qualities of the Bath waters by observing their 
effect on some smne that seemed to have a disease similar 
to his o^^Ti. 

8 : 29. Non sine diis animosus infans. The Latin way 
of expressing, A sturdj^ child, thanks to the gods. 

9: 20. John Home, 1722-1808. Minister, soldier, and 
author. His militarj' exploits made him a national character 
and offset in a measure the criticism that came upon him 
as a minister of the gospel for his connection with theatri- 
cal productions, notably his tragedy, " Douglas." 

9 : 24. Downs. Rounded hills. 

11:20. John Bunyan, 1628-1688. His "Pilgrim's 
Progress" is the greatest work of its class in our language. 

11 : 21. Solomon Gesner, 1730-1788. Swiss painter 
and poet. The " Death of Abel " is an idyllic pastoral. 

11 : 21. Nicholas Rowe, 1674-1718. Enghsh poet and 
dramatist. 

11: 30. Alexander Pope, 1688-1744. 

11 : 30. Homer. Tradition tells us that the Greek 
poet, Homer, was blind. Pope's translations of his great 
poems will give you some of the pleasure that came to 
the boy Scott. 

15 : 9. Pare and burn a muir. The cutting of peat in 
the moors was work for a strong man. 

16 : 22. Ossian. An interesting literary forgerj^ by 
James Macpherson. 

16 : 22. Edmund Spenser, 1552-1599. Which of Spen- 
ser's poems is Scott referring to? 

18 : 8. Tasso, 1544-1595. Italian poet. John Hoole, 
1727-1803. English translator. 

18:11. Bishop Percy, 1729-1811. English bishop of 



252 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

Dromore, Ireland. While a vicar in Northamptonshire 
he did his literary work. 

18 : 17. Delilahs. The sixteenth chapter of the Book 
of Judges will give the story of Samson and Delilah. Can 
you explain Scott's figurative use of the name? 

19 : 5-7. Richardson, Fielding, Smollett. The fathers 
of the English novel. 

19 : 6. Henry Mackenzie.- Frequently referred to as 
" The Man of Feeling," the title of his first novel. 

22:3. George Buchanan, 1506-1582. One of Scot- 
land's greatest scholars. He wrote Latin with all ibut 
classic ease. Scott doubtless refers to his " Rerum Scoti- 
carum Historica." 

22 : 4. Matthew of Paris. An English monk of the 
thirteenth century who may have studied in France. 
Scott read parts of his " Historia Anglorum." 

24 : 3. Menus plaisirs. French for " amusements." 

24:21. Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy. Jemmy and 
Jenny are characters noted for their cunning and treachery 
in Gay's " The Beggar's Opera," Jessamy, a fop in 
Bickerstaff's opera, " Lionel and Clarissa." They gave 
their names to a tribe of imitations. 

24 : 22. Frances Burney, 1752-1840. Better known as 
Madame D'Arblay, English novelist and friend of Dr. 
Samuel Johnson. What class of novel did she introduce ? 

24:23. Mackenzie. Henry Mackenzie, 1745-1831, 
author of " The Man of Feeling " and other novels. Some 
critics think his works the most sentimental of all English 
novels. 

26 : 5. Andrew Macdonald, 1755-1790. Unfortunate 
because a failure in almost everything he attempted 
except his tragedy, " Vimonda," which had successful pro- 
ductions in both Edinburgh and London. 



NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 253 

26:17. Preston. Battle of 1715, fought in behalf of 
the first Stuart pretender. 

26: 18. Tiled haddocks. This use of " tiled," in the 
sense of " dried " as applied" to fish, seems to be peculiar to 
Scotland. 

26 : 33. Immortal general. General Sir Ralph Aber- 
crombie, 1734-1801, is credited with having restored 
the ancient discipline and military success of the British 
soldier, much impaired by reverses in America. 

27:21. Autolycus. Make his acquaintance in "Win- 
ter's Tale." 

28 : 1. Bannockburn. June 24, 1314, saw the defeat at 
Bannockburn of Edward II and 100,000 English by Robert 
Bruce and 30,000 Scotch. 

29 : 9. Falkland. The summer palace of the Stuart 
kings of Scotland, located in Fifeshire. 

29 : 10. Holy-Rood. The royal residence at Edin- 
burgh. The story of the application of the name. Holy 
Cross, to this palace is an interesting one. . 

29 : 11. Queen Mary's yew tree at Crookston. Crook- 
ston castle was the property of the Darnley family at the 
time of the murder of Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary 
Queen of Scots, in 1567. 

32 : 1. Civil law. The laws derived from the Romans. 
For centuries the Scotch were allied with the French as 
the natural enemies of the English. This explains the 
popularity in Scotland of the laws of the Latin countries. 
Much of the civil law came into England by way of the 
equity courts. 

32 : 17. Tony Lumpkin. If you do not know Tony, 
make his acquaintance in Goldsmith's delightful comedy, 
*' She Stoops to Conquer." 

35 : 3. Hercules. The national hero of ancient Greece. 



254 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

He was the son of Jupiter and a mortal mother. The 
story of his twelve labors and countless adventures is full 
of interest. 

37 : 24. Michaelmas. The feast of Saint Michael, 
September 29, one of the four quarter days of the business 
year. This was the autumn term of the court. 

37 : 29. Liddesdale. In Scott's day a wild district 
near the southeastern border of Scotland. 

37 : 31. Riding Ballad. A ballad celebrating a Border 
raid. It was sung by the horsemen as they rode. 

37 : 32. Moss-troopers. Border horsemen of Scotland, 
so called because of the mossy or boggy character of much 
of the border country. 

37 : 33. Douglasses. Robert the Bruce gave the Doug- 
las of his day charge over the borders. The power of 
the Douglas family increased until at times it was a 
menace to the power of the kings. 

40 : 20. Parliament House. The building formerly 
used by the Scotch Parliament, which was at this time the 
meeting place of the supreme courts of Scotland. 

41 : 1. Outer-House. The supreme court of Scotland 
consists of two courts of appeal, called the Inner-House, 
and five courts of original jurisdiction, the Outer-House. 

41 : 5. Mountain. The extreme revolutionary party 
in the French National Assembly at the time of the French 
revolution was called the Mountain because of the position 
it occupied in the upper part of the hall. 

41 : 30. Duns Scotus. Scottish theologian of the 
thirteenth century. 

42 : 26. Bean Lean. To be met in Scott's first novel. 

45 : 1. Queen Guenever. As King Arthur's queen she 
has a place in immortal story, told for our age by Tenny- 
son. 



NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 255 

45 : 7. Balmawhapples. See Scott's " Waverley." 

48 : 30. Lenore. The heroine of a ballad composed by 
Burger, Scott liked to surround himself by material 
reminders of the world of fancy, which was in many respects 
his real world. 

58 : 30. George Ellis, 1753-1815. English poet and 
antiquarian. Scott held him in high regard ; and it was 
from the many letters to Ellis that Lockhart drew much of 
the material for his biography. 

63 : 6. William Wordsworth, 1770-1850. As an inter- 
preter of the spirit in nature he holds a place in the first 
rank of English poets. 

63 : 7. Sir John Stoddart. English journalist and jurist. 

64 : 26. Reged. One of the localities named in the 
Arthurian legends. Scott identified it with Tweeddale, 
the region about Ashestiel. Modern scholarship favors 
Dunbartonshire. 

65 : 25. James Hogg. A rude shepherd of Ettrick 
Forest in whom Scott discovered a brother poet of not 
inconsiderable natural gifts. The district known as 
Ettrick Forest was at this time almost treeless. 

66 : 25. Galled my kibes. Hurried me. A Shakespear- 
ean expression -^ath the literal meaning, Irritated my chil- 
blains ; figuratively, Stepped on my frost-bitten heels. 

70 : 10. Dis alitor visum. The gods saw otherwise. 

74 : 16. Robert Southey, 1774-1843. English poet. 

75 : 32. Out damned spot. Scott was playing with the 
tragic expression of Lady Macbeth. 

78:11. Sir Humphry Davy, 1778-1829. English 
scientist. For what is he especially noted ? 

79 : 9. Teind. tithe. 

81:1. John Dryden, 1631-1701. English poet and 
dramatist. 



266 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

84:21. Somers' Tracts. John Somers, 1651-1716, 
Lord Chancellor of England. His library furnished the 
materials for the collection known as the " Somers' 
Tracts," published in London about 1750. 

84 : 22. Sadler State Papers. Sir Ralph Sadler, 
1507-1587. Diplomat in the service of Henry VIII and 
later in the service of Elizabeth. His despatches are 
among the most reliable and most interesting records 
of his time. In editing these papers Scott was again 
*' making himself " for his romances. 

84:27. Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745. Dean of St. 
Patrick's. How do many children first make his acquaint- 
ance? 

88 : 3. Piscottie. Robert Lindsay of Piscottie lived 
from 1500 to 1565. He was an interesting but inaccurate 
historian of Scotland. 

88 : 4. John Barbour. Scottish poet, 1316-1395. 

88 : 5. Blind Harry. A minstrel who died about the 
time of the discovery of America. His fame rests on his 
poem, " Wallace." See Scott's " Fair Maid of Perth." 

88 : 12. Cyropaedia. A Greek prose romance by 
Xenophon describing the education of the older and 
greater Cyrus. 

90 : 6. Sir Ralph. Sir Ralph Saddler. 

90 : 23. James Saxon. English portrait painter. 

91 : 2. John Ballantyne. A younger brother of James 
Ballantyne. The book-selling concern of John Ballantyne 
& Co. was established in 1809 as a part of Scott's dealings 
with the Ballantynes in opposition to Constable. See 
Note on Differences with Constable on page 257. 

93 : 24. Beaumont and Fletcher. English playwrights 
of Shakespeare's time who worked together in writing a 
number of plays. 



NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 257 

93 : 25. Culdees. An ancient monastic order that had 
settlements in Ireland and Scotland. 

93 : 25. John Jamieson, D.D., 1759-1838. Antiquary 
and philologist. 

94: 17. Sit mihi sedes utinam senectael Would that 
I might have a home for my old age. 

96 : 6. Charge-Law. In some districts of Scotland 
" law " has the meaning, " hiU." 

97 : 18. Catrail. A ditch, some forty miles in length, of 
doubtful origin, but supposed to have been a work of 
defence built by the Picts in their opposition to the Romans. 

98 : 19. Preux chevalier. A valiant knight. 

98 : 27. Jacques Callot, 1592-1635. French painter. 

101 : 27. Jeffrey. By pubUshing the " Bridal of Trier- 
main " anonymously Scott hoped to puzzle Jeffrey, the 
brilliant editor of the Edinburgh Review, as well as the 
reading public. 

102 : 16. Pari passu. With equal step ; at the same 
speed. 

104 : 1. Differences with Constable. Some rather 
unfair criticisms of Scott's work appeared in Constable's 
Edinburgh Review. Scott was not easily offended in this 
way, but he noticed with some bitterness the Whig prin- 
ciples the Review was advancing, and determined to assist 
in the establishment of a rival, the Quarterly Review. 
These differences continued for some years, but mutual 
interests finally brought the greatest writer and the great- 
est publisher of the time back to their old alliance. 

110 : 12. Ex contrario. On the contrary. 

110 : 22. Grande opus. A great work ; another poem 
like " Marmion." It is interesting to note that at this 
time Scott did not consider his prose work a grande opus. 

116 : 1. Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-1774. Irish poet, 



258 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

dramatist, novelist, and historian. Irving' s " Life of 
Goldsmith " is one of the most fascinating of books. 

117 : 10. Briareus. In Greek mythology a monster 
with an hundred hands. 

119 : 28. Thomas Moore, 1780-1852. Irish poet. 
119:32. Lord Byron, 1789-1824. Though Byron's 

poetry crowded Scott's from its first place in popular 
favor in their day, a hundred years later we find more 
readers of Scott than of Byron. 

120 : 28. Joanna Baillie, 1762-1851. Her first work of 
importance, " Plays on Passions," was published anony- 
mously and ascribed by some critics to Scott. This 
resulted in their meeting and becoming warm friends. 
Scott considered her the greatest poet of his time. This 
opinion must be classed with his belief that Dr. Samuel 
Johnson was one of the greatest poets of our language. 

121:1. Corporal Nym. A rogue of Shakespeare's 
creation in " Merry Wives of Windsor " and " King Henry 
Fifth." 

127:11. Daniel Terry, 1780-1829. Actor and play- 
wright. He admired Scott to the extent of imitating his 
facial mannerisms and his handwriting. Scott said that 
if called on to take oath concerning a page of his own 
writing he could only swear that it was either his own or 
Terry's. Terry dramatized several of Scott's novels ; 
" Terrifications " Scott called them. 

129 : 24. Torres Vedras. A town in Portugal. In 
what war did English troops fight in Portugal ? 

130:4. Washington Irving, 1783-1859. One of the 
first Americans to place our country on the literary map of 
the world. You will enjoy his essay on Abbotsford, giving 
a full account of this visit at the home of Scott. He fails 
to tell us one of the most interesting incidents of the visit, 



NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 259 

from our point of \4ew, an incident with which Lockhart 
seems to have been unfamiliar. It was Irving who gave 
to Scott the original of the Rebecca of " Ivanhoe." Scott 
sent Ir\'ing one of the first copies of " Ivanhoe " and wrote, 
" How do you like your Rebecca? Does the Rebecca I 
have pictured compare A\4th the pattern given? " 

The pattern was the beautiful Rebecca Gratz of Phila- 
delphia, a dear friend of Miss Hoffman to whom Ir\ing 
was engaged at the time of her early death. Rebecca 
Gratz loved a Christian, but her Jemsh piety would not 
allow her to marry him. However, she steadfastly refused 
to marry any other and devoted her life to good works. 
When Irving learned that Scott planned to introduce a 
group of Jews in his next novel, he told him the story of 
the charming American Jewess. That he does not men- 
tion this in his account of his \isit is but proof that he 
rarely opened to others the memories of his great loss: 
Scott's was a nature that invited and won the best and 
deepest from all who knew him. 

133:11. Jedediah. Scott playfully presented the 
" Tales of my Landlord " as the work of Jedediah Cleish- 
botham, a Scotch schoolmaster. 

136 : 28. Clausus tutus ero. Closed I shall be safe. 
Gualterus Scotus is the Latin form of Scott's name. Re- 
membering that " Gu " is the Latin equivalent of our 
double " u " you can trace the anagram. 

137 : 26. Graham of Claverhouse. Viscount Dundee, 
in 1689, declared for James II and with an army of High- 
landers defeated the government forces under General 
Mackay at the battle of Killiecrankie, but was himself 
mortally wounded. 

138 : 7. Kinder-marchen. German nursery tale. 
147 : 3. Prima cura. First work. 



260 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

161 : 7. More Scotico. In the Scottish manner. 

163:7. ** O'ervaulting ambition": Shakespeare has 
Macbeth use the Hne, " Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps 
itself." 

166 : 5. Scots Greys. The Second Royal Dragoons, a 
regiment with an honorable record since its organization 
in 1681. 

169 : 24. Blair-Adam. In the summer of 1816 Scott 
and William Clerk with several friends were the guests of 
Judge Adam at his country seat, Blair-Adam. It was 
agreed that they should have an annual reunion at the 
same place. Hence the Blair-Adam club, devoted to the 
study of the rich historical legends of Scotland. 

160 : 8. Ben Jonson, 1573-1637. English poet and 
playwright. 

161 : 1. Hastings. In 1066 the Normans under Duke 
William, the Conqueror, defeated the Saxons under their 
last king, Harold, in the battle of Hastings. Cressy 
(Crecy). Great victory of the English over the French 
in 1346 at Crecy in France. Bosworth Field. In 1485 
Henry, Earl of Richmond, defeated King Richard III 
in the battle of Bosworth Field, and became Henry VII 
of England. 

162 : 6. Pari passu. With equal speed. 

162 : 14. In petto. Italian for, " In the breast." 
We would say, " In his mind," or, possibly, " In Spain." 

162 : 24. Entre nous. Between us. 

162 : 25. Tempore. At the time of. 

164 : 14. President of the Royal Society. The Royal 
Society, though a scientific body, delighted in honoring 
their great countryman. Because of his executive ability 
as shown in the management of the festivities in honor of 
the king's visit to Edinburgh, Scott was offered a number of 



NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 261 

commercial positions and accepted the Chairmanship of 
the Edinburgh Gas Company, 

166 : 16. Louis XI. King of France from 1461 to 1483. 
He is known in history as the shrewd and false king who 
overcame the great barons and laid the foundations for 
absolutism in France. Charles the Bold, Duke of Bur- 
gundy, rather successfully opposed the encroachments of 
Louis until the battle of Nancy, where he was slain in 1477. 

167 : 10. Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849. Her " Castle 
Rackrent " and other Irish novels were much admired by 
Scott. 

167 : 27. Mr. Adolphus — Letters to Heber. John 
Leycester Adolphus, 1795-1862. His " Letters to Richard 
Heber " conclusively fixed the authorship of the Waverley 
novels on Scott. 

167:27. Richard Heber, 1773-1833. English book 
collector. 

170 : 16. Ascanius. The son of Trojan ^neas. In 
our text it simply means the aged son of a banished prince. 

170 : 18. Mirabile dictu. Wonderful to tell. 

171 : 12. George Bullock. His factory in Tenterden 
street, London, turned out all sorts of building materials. 
He made some of the plans for Abbotsford and gave many 
suggestions concerning its furnishings. Scott held him in 
high regard. 

173 : 19. Sandhurst College. The royal military col- 
lege was settled at Sandhurst in 1812. 

174 : 30. Gazetted. The Gazette is the official biweekly 
government newspaper of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, 
in which are announced appointments, promotions, honors, 
etc. Promotions frequently depended on the retirement 
of a superior, and it was the custom to pay an agreed sum 
to the one leaving the army. 



262 NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 

176:31. Currente calamo. With a running pen. 

177: 11. Le Moniteur. The official journal of France 
during the rule of the great Napoleon. 

179 : 6. Locus cui nomen est Pallas. In Westminster 
Abbey there is a bust of Goldsmith and beneath it a white 
marble tablet bearing the Latin epitaph written by Dr. 
Johnson. It contains the line, In loco cui nomen Pallas. 
In a place called Pallas. Some of the friends of Goldsmith 
preferred an English epitaph, but the " Pope of the 
English Language " declared that it was absurd to think 
of using English inscriptions in Westminster Abbey. 

195 : 13. His feet are beautiful, etc. A comparison 
of this sentence with the fifteenth verse of the first chapter 
of the Book of Nahum and with the seventh verse of the 
fifty-second chapter of the Book of Isaiah will show how 
Old Testament thought and phrase entered into Scott's 
writing. 

202 : 12. Peine forte et dure. Very severe punishment. 

206 : 30. Monstrari digito. To be pointed out. 

213 : 12. Airt and pairt. Scotch for " aiding and abet- 
ting." 

213 : 13. Panel. A prisoner at the bar. 

222 : 8. Magnum Opus. The great work. 

222 : 25. In toto. Entirely. 

225 : 14. Jacta est alea. The die is cast. Do you 
recall the important historical event with which this 
expression is connected ? 

227 : 10. A little more taste. Quoting the Archbishop 
of Granada in " Gil Bias," the French romance by Le Sage, 
novelist and dramatist, 1668^1747. 

247 : 10. " By Yarrow's stream, etc." From stanza 
II, Canto VI, of " The Lay of the Last Minstrel." 



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All's Well That Ends Well. 

(Lowes.) 
Antony and Cleopatra. (Benedict.) 
As You Like It. (Shackford.) 
Comedy of Errors. (Padelford.) 
Coriolanus. (Sherman.) 
Cymbeline. (Howe.) 
Hamlet. (Baker.) 
Henry IV, Part I. (Chandler.) 
Henry IV, Part II. (Hanscom.) 
Henry V. (Mott.) 
Henry VI, Part I. (Pound.) 
Hem-y VI, Part II. (Barnwell.) 
Hemy VI, Part III. (Law.) 
Henry VIII. (Dunlap.) 
Julius Caesar. (Lovett.) 
Kmg John. (Belden.) 
King Lear. (Gildersleeve.) 
Love's Labour's Lost. (Roj'ster.) 
Macbeth. (Brown.) 
Measure for Measure. (Morris.) 
Merchant of Venice. (Ayres.) 
Merry Wives of Windsor. (Emery.) 



Midsummer-Night's Dream. 

(Cunliffe.) 
Much Ado About Nothing. 
Othello. (Parrott.) (Lawrence.) 
Pericles. (Smith.) 
Richard II. (Craige.) 
Richard III. (Churchill.) 
Romeo and Juliet. (NeUson and 

Thomdike.) 
The Sonnets. (Alden.) 
Taming of the Shrew. (Tupper.) 
The Tempest. (Greene.) 
Timon of Athens. (Fletcher.) 
Titus Andronicus. (Stoll.) 
Troilus and Cressida. (Tatlock.) 
Twelfth Night. (Hart.) 
Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

(Sampson.) 
Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece. 

(Brown.) 
Winter's Tale. (Wylie.) 
Facts about Shakespeare. 

(XeiUon and Thomdike.) 



Elements of English Composition 

By Professor HENRY S. CANBY, Sheffield Scientific School, 

Yale University, and Mr. JOHN B. OPDYCKE, High 

School of Commerce, New York City 

Cloth, 12mo, 593 pages, $1.00 

The characteristic feature of this book is that the authors see 
the end from the beginning and never lose sight of it. That 
end is the ability on the part of the pupil to write clearly, correctly, 
and intelligently. From start to finish the appeal is to the intelH- 
gence rather than to mere form. The fact that before all else there 
must be something to say is emphasized in the first two chapters on 
Composition and Shaping the Material. The remainder of the book 
is simply a study of different ways and the best ways of saying what 
you want to say. 

The manner of approach is psychological. Part I contains 
(l) choice of subject; (2) arrangement of what you want to say; 

(3) the use of the sentence as the expression of a single thouglit; 

(4) the use of the paragraph; (5) the structure of the whole com- 
position; (6) the choice of the right word to express meaning 
nicely. Part H is a study of the recognized forms of composition, 
exposition, argument, description, narration, the story. In Part III, 
Aids to Composition, there are given for reference necessary details 
concerning spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammatical forms, 
figures of speech, etc. Throughout the book there are abundant 
exercises and illustrative excerpts that serve to emphasize the point 
under consideration. The book is a unit, the plan works. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



Studies in Literature 



By FREDERICK MONROE TISDEL 

Assistant Professor of English in the University of Missouri. 

Cloth, J2mo, illustrated, 333 pages, list price $ .go 
In Part I of this book the author introduces the student to more than 
twenty standard Enghsh classics, giving in connection with each a brief 
explanatory introduction, suggestions for study and topics for oral and 
written discussion. These classics are grouped with respect to the dif- 
ferent types of literature which they represent, — epic, drama, essay, 
novel, etc., and there is a brief exposition of the type. The result is 
that in the mind of the reader the individual masterpiece and the type 
with its characteristics are inseparably connected. 

Part II consists of a brief but masterly survey of English literature. 
The book as a whole serves to systematize and unify the study of sec- 
ondary school literature, — a most desirable end. 

Professor E. A. Cross, State Teachers College, Greeley, Colo. " It 
meets with my heartiest approval. It is brief, considers all the writers 
high school students need to know, touches the interesting features in 
the lives and works of these men, — about all you could wapt it to do." 

Mr. John B. Opdycke, English Department of the High School of 
Commerce, New York City. " I like it very much indeed. It has just 
enough in its review of the history of English literature, and its treat- 
ment of the classics is restrained and dignified. So far as I have seen, 
this is the only book that combines the two in one volume. I am all 
against the use of an abstract History of English Literature in the high 
school and I am all in favor of putting into the hands of the students 
some book that analyzes classics fully and yet with restraint. This 
book seems to have combined the two in just the right proportions and 
treated them in just the right manner." 



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Boston Chicago Atlanta Dallas San Francisco 



Oral English for 
Secondary Schools 



By WILLIAM PALMER SMITH 

Instructor in Oral English in Stuyvesant High School, New York City 



Cloth, 12mo, m, 358 pages, $1.00 



It is the purpose of this volume to outline 
graded lessons in enunciation and pronun- 
ciation ; to indicate how the speaking voice 
may be improved by appropriate exercise 
and proper use ; to explain and illustrate 
the most important principles of expression ; 
to point out the relation of oral reading to 
conversation and public speaking; and to 
furnish appropriate selections which are un- 
hackneyed, interesting, and of literary merit. 



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